


The Human Heart

by onewildandpreciouslife



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Vampire, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 83,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27111208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onewildandpreciouslife/pseuds/onewildandpreciouslife
Summary: AU. Broadchurch has a vampire problem, but when Danny Latimer's body turns up on the beach, DS Ellie Miller and DI Alec Hardy realize that they might be hunting for more than one monster.
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller, Alec Hardy/Ellie Miller
Comments: 156
Kudos: 114





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: As Phillip Pullman wrote, I've stolen ideas from every book I've ever read. (And every TV show/movie I've ever watched) Many thanks to Chris Chibnall for creating the world of Broadchurch and to the actors and actresses who breathed life into it. Many thanks to all the Vampire AU fanfic writers, to Bram Stoker (even though baseline Dracula wasn't what I was expecting), Anne Rice, Deborah Harkness, Charlaine Harris, the writers of _True Blood, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, and Fright Night_ , Stephanie Meyer, Cassandra Claire, Elizabeth Kostova and the many, many writers who have given us their interpretation of Vampires that are all starting to blur together in my disorganized brain. I own nothing and I hope there weren't any other authors I forgot to credit. **

_Evil comes out of the human heart. It doesn’t come out of Nature._ – Richard Preston

_I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other._ – Mary Shelley

**Prologue**

No one knows when vampires first appeared, but by the seventeenth century vampires had decided that they no longer wanted to be the animalistic beasts of nightmares. Technology, science and art intrigued them and the modernization of the world was a more fearsome enemy than priests wielding crucifixes. Their brains were better suited than the average human for these higher pursuits and they thrived. This new breed of vampires searched for an alternative method of getting blood in order to live amongst humans, and anyone who objected to this new civilized lifestyle was hunted down by their own and killed with brutal efficiency. 

By the year 1980, vampires made up an estimated three percent of the world population and were living peacefully amongst humans, many of them holding respectable positions in society. They were artists, scientists, engineers, CEOs and leaders. They even had their own separate court and laws of exception that worked in tandem with their human counterparts. All of this was made possible by the creation and marketing of several synthetic alternatives to human blood in the early twentieth century. The siring of vampires was closely and vigorously monitored, and the number of homicides by exsanguination had dropped to a record-breaking low. It was the Golden Age for humans and vampires.

And then on January 12th 1980, it came to an end. 

An anti-vampire terrorist group successfully infiltrated the largest lab that made synthetic blood and batches of it were released before the breach was confirmed and made public by a whistle-blower. By then it was too late. By February the vampire population had been decimated by the swift-acting poison. Human sympathizers worked frantically to find an antidote, but the drug trials proved more crippling for the dwindling population. The leading expert in the field was bitten by one of his patients and funding for the antidote was immediately revoked. 

There were riots and protests throughout March and April as the anti-vampire groups were hailed as heroes by some and villainized by others. In May a world-renowned vampire pop star was found beheaded in London and a blood-thirsty fan club of fledglings retaliated. In August the last vampire MP was staked and burned by a mob of humans. By December, the vampire courts had been dissolved and thousands of vampires had been executed without a trial. Many more were locked up in facilities or escaped to go into hiding. 

By 2012, time and retrospect had brought to light the mistakes that had been made on both sides, but the damage to the vampire population was irreversible. Many of the facilities had been dissolved, but the vampires that were reintroduced to society were wary and went to great lengths not to draw attention to themselves. Some successfully blended in with humans, others struggled with it or avoided humans altogether. 

DS Ellie Miller was currently looking at one that somehow managed to bridge the entire spectrum and rebel against it at the same time. 

Jack was over five-hundred years old and had taken up residence in her small rural town when she was a child. He’d once told Ellie he’d purchased the Newsagent’s purely out of spite, but he spent every day bemoaning the fact that he had to interact with human beings on a daily basis. 

Ellie was probably the only person in the entire town who knew what Jack was. Although some suspected or got a queer vibe off of him, most people remembered vampires as exceptionally beautiful people like the pop star whose death had started a riot. Others believed that vampires were extinct or hiding in places like Siberia, Alaska or Canada.

Perhaps in his youth, Jack had been as handsome as the pair of statuesque golden-haired vampires Ellie had spotted on a childhood trip to London, but he’d long ago been warped by bitterness and the losses he’d suffered. Jack had once mentioned that the labs had never recovered. Although synthetic blood was still being made and was accessible, it wasn’t as good as the stuff of the Golden Age. And this was precisely why Ellie had gone straight to Jack after a farmer reported slaughtered sheep. 

“It wasn’t me,” he growled, checking again to ensure they were alone. “After Jocelyn left town, she left me with enough of that synthetic rubbish to last me through another Hundred Years' War.” 

Ellie was eight months pregnant and the baby was weighing heavily on her bladder, but her ears perked at the mention of another potential vampire.

“Jocelyn isn’t a vampire, she’s a sympathizer,” he explained, “If you don’t believe me, ask Maggie. She’s shacking up with her and you know humans don’t do that with us anymore.”

“Is there anyone else that you can think of that might’ve done this?” Ellie pressed, but Jack’s patience for humanity had been stretched thin and Ellie had to wee again. He shoved some chocolate and crisps at her and shooed her out of the shop, but Ellie knew he had a soft spot for her and would tell her if he heard anything. 

He did, but by then it was too late. 

Ellie’s current boss, DI Walker, had a booming laugh and a big heart, but he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. This hadn’t been a problem until Ellie had to go on bedrest. 

The slaughtered sheep was only the beginning. There was a break-in at the butcher’s shop and then the butcher was killed. Ellie was in labour when her idiot boss walked straight into a terrified fledgling’s nest. 

Jack was the one who had to break the news to her. DI Walker had been one of those people who was adamant about vampires being extinct; he hadn’t stood a chance. The fledgling had escaped, but her burned body turned up a few days later in the same field where the sheep had been slaughtered. Ellie never found out who had sired her and abandoned her or who had killed her. DI Walker and the butcher’s murder were written off as another case where a transient drug addict lost control during a high. 

“I’ve reached out to everyone I know, but there aren’t many left,” Jack lamented as they sat together on a bench in the cemetery after DI Walker’s burial. “No one knows anything.”

“Someone has to know something,” Ellie persisted, watching as Joe showed off Fred to the Latimers and Tom kicked a ball around the headstones with Danny. 

“I doubt they’ll come back,” Jack reassured her.

“I just wish we could’ve talked to the fledgling. If there are others out there like her…” she trailed off, shuddering. 

She wasn’t afraid of Jack, but Jack had warned her never to approach a fledgling or any of the ‘Wilds’ as he called them. There was no reasoning with them in that state; they became monsters when they were first turned and often remained that way if left on their own. Even Jack, old and gnarled by bitterness and weakened by a steady diet of fake blood, wouldn’t provide much protection against another vampire. But Ellie needed information and she needed it last week. 

“I’ll talk to Jocelyn,” he relented as the boys ran past them. “She has a contact in South Mercia who might have a wider reach.” 

Ellie passed the next few months at home busy with the newest addition to their family. CS Jenkinson hired a temporary replacement for the DI position, but Ellie was under the understanding that the job was hers when she returned from maternity leave. Joe had surprised them with a trip to Florida, and Ellie planned to end her maternity leave after the holiday. 

A few days before the trip, Ellie checked in with Jack to see if he’d heard anything on the vampire front. 

“I found an article about some livestock getting slaughtered in Yeovil and a break-in at a butcher shop in Weymouth too. I’m concerned,” she said as Fred fussed in the pram.

“You’re not the only one,” he grumbled. 

Fred started to wail before Ellie could wheedle the information out of him. Jack cringed at the noise and Ellie was forced to take Fred outside. Before she left though, Jack gave her one of his rare tokens of affection, a cool squeeze on the shoulder that was oddly comforting, and told her not to worry. 

*

Alec Hardy sighed as another one of the yawning police cadets nodded off. Hardy skipped to the last slide and gave a quick recap of the last two hours he’d spent lecturing them on dull policies and procedures that were useless in the real world. As he closed up his notes and switched off the computer, he wondered if his boss was right. Perhaps he was in danger of boring the class to death.

“Hardy.”

He sighed again and faced his disapproving boss. But his eyes skipped past her, snagging on a vaguely familiar face. Hardy nodded along with whatever she was telling him, excused himself, and hurried outside. 

She was waiting for him under the awning, smoking a cigarette. 

“Jocelyn,” Hardy murmured, shocked. Time had finally caught up with her, but the close-lipped smile and the razor-sharp gaze was the same as it had been years ago when they’d first met. 

“I have a job for you.”

“Thank god,” Hardy said and her eyes narrowed.

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“My boss wants to sack me for boring her cadets. One of the lads fell asleep and banged his head on the desk so hard he nearly gave himself a concussion.”

Jocelyn clutched at her elbow, her lips twitching as if she wanted to laugh. 

“I can’t do this anymore,” he told her. “Whatever you’ve got for me, I’ll take it.”

Jocelyn took another drag on her cigarette.

“You’re not going to like it,” she warned him. 

“Just get me out of here.”

Dropping the cigarette, she stubbed it out with her heel. She reached into her satchel and retrieved a dossier that she passed over to him. Hardy tore it open and flipped through the sheaf of papers. He gave the snapshot of the orange cliffs a cursory glance and skimmed the article beneath it. 

“Where the hell is Broadchurch?”

“Dorset,” Jocelyn answered with a slight edge to her voice and he frowned at the report.

“Wasn’t that part of Jack’s territory?” 

“Still is,” she corrected him.

“Then what does he need us for?” Hardy wondered.

“You’ll understand when you get there,” Jocelyn said cryptically. 

Upon arriving in the sleepy seaside town, Hardy still didn’t understand. The thought crossed his mind that this might somehow be all Tess’s doing, arranging for another mind-boggling dull placement. Hardy decided he hated the place within five minutes of his arrival, and he was sure that Tess had to have found a new and unique way to punish him. 

He shared these thoughts with Baxter as they sat together in the wooden shelter after the doctor had leased a car to drive him down.

“How does _she_ sleep at night?” he mused aloud. Baxter just shook his head. 

“You need to forgive yourself, Hardy. It’s been-”

“It’s penance,” Hardy interrupted him softly. 

“I – I don’t regret what I did afterwards,” he mollified and closed his eyes as the blood and water threatened to seep into his mind’s eye. “I should’ve been able to stop it from happening. I should’ve…” he trailed off as Baxter patted him awkwardly on the shoulder. 

“Be careful, Hardy,” Baxter warned him. “If you don’t let it go, it’ll kill you one day.”

Hardy watched him leave and wondered if that day would ever come. 

The following morning, Hardy went into the Newsagent’s to buy a newspaper. A crusty old man rang him up, and Hardy did a double take. 

“What are you looking at?” he sneered at Hardy. 

Hardy returned at the end of the day and waited until the man was about to lock up for the night before he pushed his way into the shop. But as he turned toward him in the dark, Hardy was almost certain that this wasn’t a man at all, but one of the few survivors of the cataclysmic end to the Golden Age and perhaps the oldest registered vampire still living freely in the U.K.

“Jack Adams?”

“It’s Jack _Marshall_ now, and I asked for _help_ , not some bloody human-” Jack broke off and stared at Hardy for a long, searching moment. “I remember you,” Jack said chillingly, ignoring his outstretched hand. “You failed that little girl, didn’t you?”

“A mistake was made,” Hardy admitted, “But I won’t be making that mistake again.” Jack bristled. 

“You tell Jocelyn that I’ve got it under control.”

“As long as DS Miller can confirm that,” Hardy said and the old vampire didn’t like that. He grabbed Hardy and slammed him up against the door, hard enough to rattle him, but not enough for the glass to crack. Jack’s yellowed fangs came out as he growled,

“You stay away from her.”

“Can’t,” Hardy spat, “I’m her new boss.”

Hardy could feel Jack’s hands trembling, partly from anger, but partly from that awful disease that vampires so rarely ever succumbed to: old age. 

“I’m only here to assess the situation,” Hardy reminded him, holding up his palms. “I’m not staying.”

Jack let go of him. His fangs retracted and suddenly he was just a grumpy elderly man again. 

“This is _my_ town,” he told Hardy with all the dignity and pride he could still manage. 

“I’ll need your full cooperation,” Hardy said, and Jack’s upper lip curled as if he was reconsidering releasing Hardy. “The quicker we flush them out, the quicker I’ll be gone,” he pointed out and Jack’s shoulders slumped.

“You have one month, then I’m taking matters into my own hands,” Jack snarled ominously, his eyes sparking with the power he’d once held and still in many ways held over Hardy. “If you cross me or anyone else in this town, your job will be the least of your concerns,” he threatened him. 

Hardy left hastily, shaken by the troubling truth behind Jack’s warning. He couldn’t screw up another case. Never again. He’d told Baxter it was penance that kept driving him and he believed that Tess was still punishing him too, but the weight in his chest grew heavier and thornier with each passing day. He was _terrified_ of what might happen if he failed. 

*

Two weeks later, Hardy was paralyzed by that same crippling fear at the sight of a child lying motionless on the beach. 

“God, don’t do this to me,” he whispered, closing his eyes against the white-hot flash of sunlight and a searing memory of a different body laid out beneath the harsh lights in a morgue. “Not again.”

But as he drew nearer to the body, he saw what he’d been dreading: two tiny punctures in the boy’s neck. 

Hardy crouched down in the sand and struggled to focus on the boy’s body as the past and present blurred in and out of focus; crashing and colliding like surging waves on a swollen river’s bank. Hardy blinked and the boy on the beach came back into startling focus.

He didn’t need to see the M.E. report, he’d seen enough in his career to know that everything about the staging was _wrong_. 

By the time DS Miller and the grieving mother arrived on the scene, Hardy suspected they were dealing with a monster, but not the one that had brought him to Broadchurch. This wasn’t the work of a blood-crazed fledgling that had been turned without their consent and abandoned by a negligent sire. 

He feared Danny’s killer was something crueller and more dangerous.

A human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **As you can tell from the summary, this is an Alternate Universe. It won't be episode by episode, but there's going to be some canon-divergences. For instance, Jack Marshall clearly isn't a hugger of little boys in this fic, although there will be plenty of dark secrets, some from the show, some of my own design. Oh and there will be vague spoilers for Season 2. Hope to hear from y'all!**


	2. A Grief that Corrodes the Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie meets her new boss and dislikes him immediately, but at least he knows a thing or two about vampires. She might lose more than her job though, if her nephew doesn't stop digging into Jack's past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **We've gone slightly off-script again. Broadchurch is perfect just the way it is, but I did play around with the timeline and the universe; modifying, cutting and tweaking some of the quotes and events etc. for reasons that'll be clearer as the story unfolds. Any triggers from the Broadchurch show could still apply.**

Ellie’s first day back at work was one of the worst days of her life. 

Some DI Bloody Hardy got the job that was rightfully hers and a child’s body washed up on the beach. She recognized Danny and she was so relieved that it wasn’t Tom. And then Beth was screaming and she was crying in the sitting room with her closest friends who didn’t deserve to lose a child. 

No one deserved that. 

Danny was strangled, not exsanguinated, but they found two tell-tale pinpricks on his throat, as if a vampire had been interrupted. The M.E. refused to jump to any ‘wild’ conclusions, pointing out that there wasn’t any blood drawn and the incisions had been made post-mortem. Her new Scottish-and-rude superior examined them up close for several minutes, and then he walked out without her. 

“They’re not bite marks but someone wanted us to think that this was the work of a vampire,” Hardy theorized as she struggled to keep up with his long strides. 

“It can’t be a coincidence,” Ellie argued and brought him up to speed on what actually happened to DI Walker and the butcher six months ago.

“A vampire didn’t do this,” he said, his Scottish accent strengthening with his ire, “But whoever did do this has inside knowledge on that case and wants us to believe that one was involved. I’ll need a list of the names of everyone you discussed this with,” he barked at her. 

Ellie didn’t like DI Hardy, but the fact that he knew vampires weren’t extinct and didn’t doubt her report of a fledgling in the area earned him a little respect from her. 

*

They tried to keep the ‘bite marks’ quiet, but her own bloody nephew released a photo on Twitter and his caption implied that vampires had been involved. Her new boss nearly took her head off for the breach, and Ellie made Olly delete the post. But it was too late. A reporter from the _Daily Mail_ saw Olly’s tweet, and together they discovered that there had been other murders in Dorset that fit the vampire M.O. that law enforcement had covered up. 

It was difficult to sell a sensationalized vampire story when half their readers wanted to believe that they were extinct, and so the reporters started digging through old criminal records for a potential paedo instead. 

Jack was understandably on edge when Ellie ran into him at the church service held in the aftermath of Danny’s death. Ellie assured him that his secret was safe with her, but Jack obstinately insisted on sitting through the service with her in the back pew. He walked out of the church with a noticeable rash that Beth’s Mum fussed over and the Reverend eyed suspiciously when he shook Jack’s hand. Ellie knew she was being paranoid, but even Joe seemed to be frowning at Jack from the other side of the church and he left with the boys before she could catch up with them. 

“You shouldn’t have come, Jack,” Ellie sighed. Jack scratched at the blistering heel of his hand, but as they walked out from under the shadow of St. Mark’s protection, it was already healing. 

“I wanted to,” Jack said gruffly. “He was a good lad, Danny, raised well, same as Tom,” he added, tipping his head respectfully toward her. Ellie blushed at his high praise and hooked her arm through his as they walked down the steep path. 

“I know it wasn’t you, Jack. I know you wouldn’t hurt any of us,” she said fervently and Jack’s lips quirked up at one corner. 

“Your new boss might not agree with you,” he scoffed. Ellie scrunched up her face. 

“Don’t trust, that’s his view of the world. I don’t know how he sleeps at night,” she rambled on, venting about how much of a knob DI Hardy was being to her. Jack cackled when she told him how Hardy had reacted to a boat _barely_ on the water. She’d offered him a hand up into Mark’s boat to check out the bloodstain and he’d balked.

“But you’re getting along with him?” he asked in that same tone he’d reserved for whenever he thought someone might be ‘bothering’ her. As far as she knew, Jack had never interfered, but the thought of him flashing his fangs at Hardy gave her a tiny burst of pleasure. 

“He’s harmless,” she grudgingly admitted, “But he’s a bloody wanker. If he gets on my last nerve, I’m pissing in a cup and throwing it at him.”

Jack threw back his head and laughed. 

*

A few weeks, that was all it took for Jack to be accused, but not for the reason Ellie had expected him to be linked to the case. After ruling out the recovering alcoholic Reverend and learning about Mark Latimer’s affair with Becca Fisher, even Ellie was shocked and unprepared for the salacious piece of _Jack_ ’s past Olly unearthed. 

Jack had been imprisoned for underage sex, married and widowed in the 70’s. 

And he had a child. 

Ellie tried to get to Jack first, but Hardy was already three steps ahead of her and dragging her along in his wake. Ellie warred with herself, wondering if she should inform Hardy that Jack was a vampire and a close friend of hers. Hardy breezed right into Jack’s shop and kicked out the only customer, locking the door behind them. 

“I didn’t do this,” Jack stated, looking at them with imploring eyes. “I swear I didn’t touch that boy. I would never.”

“Tell us about the past allegations,” Hardy urged him.

Jack launched into the story, recounting how he’d fallen in love with his teenage student whom he’d later made his wife. Ellie was disgusted by the age disparity (although Jack swore he hadn’t touched her until he’d served his sentence and she was twenty-one), but upon seeing the faded photograph she saw an unrecognizable younger and happier man. 

“You can’t have children,” Ellie blurted.

“The child wasn’t mine,” he admitted. “Alice got into some trouble while I was locked up, but had Alice lived I would’ve raised the child as my own. I loved her. I loved them both.”

Ellie realized that his grief had literally warped and aged him. Jack was an immortal powerful creature who had survived death, burnings, plagues and poison, and yet his love for a mere mortal woman had brought him to his knees. 

“Why didn’t you tell me Jack?” Ellie appealed to him, forgetting Hardy’s looming presence behind her.

“Because I knew you’d be disgusted,” he replied with bloody tears in his eyes. His voice shook with the force of that love and that grief that had eaten away at him over the last few decades. “She was only sixteen when I first saw her, but I knew immediately that she was my Mate and that I wouldn’t have her for very long.”

“You should’ve told me,” Ellie said, and Jack looked at Hardy guarding the door. 

“You’re so young,” he said softly, “You don’t understand what it’s like to live forever and to spend it alone.”

Hardy threw Jack a glare before steering Ellie out of the shop. 

For the first time, Hardy drove as Ellie struggled to come to terms with one of her oldest friends building his life here on a lie like that. She’d never faulted him for being a vampire, but this was different. Ellie felt as if she’d been betrayed. 

“How could he do that?” Ellie whispered. “She was only sixteen and he’s been around for centuries…”

Hardy pulled the car over to the side of the road and Ellie realized what she’d accidentally let slip. 

“I mean he seems so much older-” she stammered, but he cut her off. 

“Miller, how many other people know how old Jack is?” 

“No one actually knows how old he is,” she answered honestly, “But he looks like he’s in his seventies.”

“ _Millah_ ,” Hardy snapped. “Who else knows _what_ Jack is?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she sniffed.

Hardy flexed his hands on the steering wheel. She could practically hear his teeth grinding together. In spite of everything she’d found out today, Ellie felt as if she needed to keep Jack’s secret, especially from an irksome outsider like Hardy. 

She peeked over at her abrasive boss and found him sitting very still and staring straight ahead. 

“He might be a monster but he didn’t kill Danny,” she insisted stubbornly. 

“I know,” Hardy agreed, sighing, “But if this gets out, they’re going to burn him.”

Ellie’s heart sank, but Hardy wasn’t finished.

“It’s only a matter of time before the press realizes the prison Jack went to had human _and_ vampire occupants in the 70’s.”

“Jocelyn,” she murmured and he turned sharply to look at her. “According to Jack, she’s a sympathizer and her partner’s Maggie at the _Broadchurch Echo_. Oh, and Beth’s Mum, Liz, and Reverend Paul Coates noticed Jack had a rash after he went to church with me the other day,” she recollected, chewing on her lip. “I know some more people who might suspect it, I can give you their names, but they don’t want to believe it. And if you look at him, no one would ever think…” she tapered off, frowning. 

“That’s what happens to vampires when they Mate with a human, they age with them,” Hardy explained.

“But she’s dead,” Ellie reminded him.

“Yes, but his Mate’s daughter survived the car crash,” he revealed. “Some vampires feel compelled to protect the bloodline of someone they loved, sometimes they’ll lurk around them for decades or even centuries.”

Ellie did some swift math in her head. The girl would’ve been about her own age if she’d survived, but Ellie didn’t remember ever meeting the child or hearing any gossip. Jack spent some time with the Sea Brigade to blend in better, but only because she’d suggested it. He was a gruff and prickly misanthrope, but Ellie had always been the exception. His door was never closed to her, some of Ellie’s earliest memories were of Jack slipping her sweets and letting her watch him stock the shelves. As she got older, he’d answer her questions and tell her stories about the past. He’d instructed her on how to stake a vampire in addition to some basic self-defence, and he’d taught her how to sail. Most vampires feared the water, but Jack prided himself on surviving the seventeenth century vampire hunts by overcoming that phobia. He’d learned to love the water. 

“Miller.”

Ellie glanced up at Hardy with tears in her eyes. 

“Do you think the Latimers know about Jack?” he asked. 

Ellie started to shake her head, but then a memory from months earlier surfaced. She’d bumped into Danny on her way out of the shop, but with her pregnancy-addled brain and her focus on getting to the nearest loo, she hadn’t remembered until now. 

“Oh, God, I think Danny overheard us discussing the fledgling problem in the shop one day.”

Hardy groaned and dragged a hand over his eyes.

“Do you think he told his parents or Tom?” 

“No,” Ellie answered, swallowing, “I would’ve heard about it, but…” She bit her lip. 

“But what?” Hardy prodded her. 

“I think Joe’s started to suspect something’s different about Jack,” Ellie confessed haltingly. “He doesn’t like me bringing Tom into the Newsagent’s anymore, and he wouldn’t let me hold Fred near Jack at DI Walker’s funeral.” 

“Right.” Hardy drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Joe’s your… husband? And Fred…?” 

Ellie rolled her eyes. Hardy already seemed more intelligent and experienced than her last three DIs combined, but she couldn’t stand him. 

“Fred’s my youngest son. My maternity leave was the reason why you got my bloody job,” she reminded him snidely and he started the car again. “Do you really think they’ll go after Jack?” she worried as they headed back to the station. 

“As long as Joe doesn’t tell the Latimers about his suspicions,” Hardy cautioned her, “We shouldn’t have another vampire hunt on our hands.” 

*

Hardy waited until everyone had left for the evening and then he walked over to Jack’s place instead of the hotel where he was staying. Jack was slow to answer his knock, but he was quick to usher him inside. 

“I’ve been expecting you,” he grunted and led Hardy into the shabby kitchenette. There was a full glass of black ‘vampire’ wine on the table and an empty bottle beside it, explaining Jack’s blood shot eyes and the resignation steeped into his wrinkled features. 

“You need to leave Broadchurch,” Hardy told him.

“You know I can’t,” Jack sighed and swirled the dark liquid around in his glass. “She’s all I have left.”

“You’re not helping her by staying here,” Hardy argued, frustrated. “They’ll come for you and we won’t be able to stop them.”

“I know,” Jack said wearily, “But I’m innocent.”

Hardy pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to remain calm.

“You _Mated_ with a human and you _Marked_ her daughter. That wasn’t in the bloody file,” he snapped. “That’s a Class VP-A offense.”

“It happened before the Golden Age ended,” Jack defended himself, “Perfectly legal then.”

“She was _sixteen_ ,” Hardy hissed, slamming his hands down on the table. The empty bottle tipped over, but Jack caught it before it hit the ground. 

“Nothing happened until she was twenty-one,” Jack said ruefully, “And you forget, for half the centuries I’ve lived, sixteen was a reasonable age for a betrothal because they lived such fleeting lives…” he trailed off, lost in the memories. “We were together for only seven years, most of which we spent apart.”

“Was it worth it?” Hardy asked before he could stop himself. Jack gave him a sad wine-stained smile. 

“I didn’t plan on wasting away, if that’s what you mean. I’d only met a few who had aged after taking or losing a Mate, but I’m over five-hundred years old and I lost her so soon. I suppose it was time.” He shrugged and gulped some more wine. 

“Alice’s daughter is still here,” Hardy tried to reason with him. “She’ll need protection if there’s a fledgling nest and god only knows what Danny’s killer is capable of under pressure.”

“I’ve done all I can for her,” Jack replied, “I can’t protect her anymore.”

“It doesn’t matter. You owe it to her to try,” he pleaded with Jack. 

“I’m not human, Hardy, I haven’t been human in a very, very long time,” he reminded him solemnly. “I didn’t want children, before or after I was turned.” He took another sip of his wine. “At first, I only loved Alice’s daughter because I recognized her mother in her. I had no difficulty persuading a local family to raise her as their own and acquiring a forged birth certificate, but I realized I loved _her_ when I couldn’t leave Broadchurch.” Jack stared at an empty corner of the kitchenette as if there was someone in the room with them that Hardy couldn’t see. Jack was right there in front of him, but he was already fading away. And Hardy didn’t understand why he cared if Jack let them burn him. 

“If it was my daughter, I’d do anything. Anything she ever asked of me,” Hardy confessed, annoyed that he couldn’t let it go.

“Even if she knew the truth, she’d never ask that of me,” Jack retorted. “Parents should never outlive their children.” Hardy knew that Jack was right, but it made his blood boil.

“You’re abandoning her and her sons.”

“She’s tougher than she looks, taught her everything I knew,” he said with a touch of pride. “She’ll be fine.” He finished off his glass of wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “She’s more capable of catching a killer and fixing our fledgling problem than some bleeding heart who failed-”

Hardy picked up the empty bottle of wine and threw it in the sink. It shattered in the basin and Jack flinched at the sound. Hardy’s head throbbed as wave after wave of anger, regret, guilt and grief washed over him. 

“I’m not going to fail this family,” he ground out even as he fought with the familiar tide of panic, “I can’t.”

Hardy suddenly felt weak and dizzy. His chest hurt and he swayed on his feet. Catching himself on the back of the chair, he slumped into it. 

“I’ll get you a stiff drink,” Jack grumbled and returned with a glass of something that was so strong it burned his nostrils. 

Hardy took a tentative sip and then drained it before he looked too closely at the dusty label on the bottle that probably hadn’t been opened in centuries. 

Jack poured him another drink and Hardy downed that one too, ignoring the way his vision was starting to dull at the edges. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the pain in his chest to subside. When he opened his eyes again, there was a third glass in front of him and his surroundings were hazier. His shoulders felt looser and lighter, but it was his tongue that slipped away from him completely. 

“A vampire didn’t kill Danny,” he confessed. “It was staged.”

Jack nodded and pointed at something Hardy had missed on the counter. 

“That’s Danny’s phone,” Jack told him, “I found it at my shop this evening. Someone’s trying to frame me.”

Hardy dropped his head into his hands and tried to take a deep breath as the panic resurfaced, lifting the temporary fog the drink had brought. 

“We won’t be able to keep this quiet,” he warned Jack. 

“She knows I didn’t do this,” Jack murmured more to himself than to Hardy. “She knows I’m not that kind of monster.”

But that was the burning question. Who was?

*

By the end of the week, Olly and Karen White had done their homework on the prison’s history and had published an article accusing Jack of being a paedophile and perhaps a vampire too. The following evening someone threw a Molotov cocktail into Jack’s shop. Jack wasn’t in his shop at the time, but Ellie wept for him as they watched it burn from a safe distance away. 

Although Ellie begged and pleaded with him, Jack wouldn’t let her take him into custody to keep him safe. Ellie went to Hardy, but he refused to help, reminding her that they couldn’t take Jack in against his will.

The next night someone spray-painted ‘paedo’ on Jack’s car and tossed a brick in through his window. Ellie washed it off and then parked out in front of his house at sundown, intending to stay there for the rest of the week if that was what it took. No one tried anything while she was there, but Joe complained about her not coming home that night and there was a still a suspect at large. Ellie was determined to protect Jack, but she’d barely made it past midnight the second night of her vigil when she nodded off. 

Someone opened the door and slid into the passenger seat next to her, nearly giving her a heart attack as she jolted awake. 

“Bloody hell, Jack! You scared me.” She smacked his arm and breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing him still in one piece. Jack’s neighbourhood was quiet and empty, but she knew that could change in an instant. “Go back inside,” she snapped, but Jack clasped her arm.

“Go home, Ellie,” he told her.

Ellie opened her mouth to protest, but she interrupted herself with a jaw-cracking yawn. She was so bloody knackered, but she knew that she was the only thing that might be standing between Jack and a blood-thirsty mob. 

“You’re exhausted,” Jack pointed out, his eyes soft. “And I can take care of myself,” he reminded her. She smiled weakly, but his answering smile was fanged. 

“I better not find another dead body tomorrow,” she groaned. “No biting anyone, not even a wanker who deserves it,” she warned him, wagging a finger at him as if he were a child. “Christ, my boss will sack me if he thinks I encouraged you.”

She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. She started to drift off again, but Jack nudged her awake. 

“Do you need me to drive you home?” he offered and tears inexplicably welled up in her eyes. 

“No, I’ll be alright,” she told him. Jack stared at her for a long moment and then he nodded. 

“Ellie?”

“Mm?” She blinked at him as he stretched out a hand and touched her forehead as if he were bestowing a blessing. Ellie was struck by a sudden vision of a faceless woman with long curling hair who was warm and soft, in such sharp contrast to the unrecognizable younger man who knelt down in front of her, smiling as he gently brushed his thumb over her hairline. 

“ _You’re under my protection. I give you my word, and the Mark of my blood, a promise that you will never be alone and will never want for anything for as long as you may live_ ,” the man told her, smearing something sticky over her brow. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered in the present and Ellie snapped back to reality. Jack was gone by the time she opened her eyes, but Ellie touched her forehead as if she could still feel the stain of his thumbprint.

*

The mob showed up shortly after Ellie left, but there was nothing she could’ve done to stop them. Ellie had barely closed her eyes, when Hardy rang her to come down to the beach with him. They arrived at daybreak with the rising sun illuminating the shimmering water. The tide lovingly lapped at Jack’s body as if she’d already taken his soul to a distant shore beyond the horizon. His eyes were open and unseeing, but he was at peace. 

“You okay?” Hardy asked, examining her instead of the corpse. 

She shook her head, but squatted down numbly next to him. 

The M.E. confirmed that Jack had been staked multiple times and then thrown over the cliff. Jack had no new defensive wounds on his body, but they’d check the local hospitals for anyone that might’ve been bitten or injured by Jack during the attack. They ruled it as a suicide. 

Ellie didn’t know how Hardy convinced the M.E. to release the body to her, but they borrowed the van and stopped for a can of petrol. Hardy drove them out of town to a remote part of the Jurassic coastline that was so difficult to reach that Ellie didn’t know how he’d found it. He got out of the van, looked around, and nodded. 

“We can burn him here,” he told her. 

Hardy poured gasoline on Jack’s body and then Ellie lit a match. Together they sat on the bonnet of the van, watching from a distance as Jack’s body burned. Smoke filled the air and Ellie’s eyes stung.

“He didn’t fight back,” she croaked. “He could’ve killed them so easily, but he just let them-” She broke off, swallowing another sob. 

“Danny’s killer is still out there,” Hardy murmured.

But they sat there as Jack’s body and clothes burned down to ashes and the sun sank below the horizon. A lifetime of memories passed before Ellie’s eyes. Only now, she realized how protective and fond Jack had been of her in his own gruff manner. He had done something that Ellie might never be able to understand, but he had loved her in the only way he could. 

Something cold brushed her back and Ellie closed her eyes remembering the rare occasions that Jack had tried to show her how important she was to him. The touch was a whisper, barely there as it moved from one shoulder blade to the other. 

“I’m sorry we couldn’t stop this,” Hardy said hoarsely. 

Ellie leaned into the cool hesitant caress as it swept over her spine and chills erupted in its wake. Another sob wracked through her body, and suddenly her grief for Jack, his Mate, and poor Danny whose life had been cut so tragically short was all tangled and wrapped up together. It was too much to be contained. She buried her face in her hands and slid sideways. Hardy caught her awkwardly against him and patted her on the back. 

“ _Sh_ ,” Hardy hushed her, “ _Shhh_.”

He actually flinched when she wrapped an arm around her. But Ellie was far beyond the point of caring. She mourned for Jack, for Danny and for the woman she didn't remember. 

It was dusk when her sobs finally stopped, and she realized that she was clinging to her unapproachable and infuriating boss. Hardy was holding himself so still, keeping his arm around her, but his head and body angled slightly away from her. She shifted and he winced. His jaw was clenched so tightly that it seemed painful. 

“Alright?” he asked stiffly as she mopped up her face. 

“Yeah, sorry,” she mumbled, pulling away from him and blushing furiously. Hardy was disgusted by her histrionics and she was mortified. 

“No, ‘m sorry,” he sighed, his shoulders slumping as she hopped from the boot. “‘m not used to…”

“People? Emotions?” she quipped, but his attention was caught by the smoking remains of Jack’s body. Ellie took one last glance at what was left of her oldest friend and then she turned her back on Jack. 

“Do you want me to take you home?” Hardy offered.

“No, I want to find whoever killed Danny and tried to pin it on Jack.” 

Hardy studied her for a long searching moment, and Ellie felt as if he could see right through her. There was something about his gaze that was so unsettling, but Ellie couldn’t look away from him. Hardy broke their stare, rubbing at the nape of his neck.

“What have you eaten today?”

Hardy wouldn’t eat anything she put on his desk, she wasn’t even sure if he drank tea, so his query surprised her. 

“A couple of Kit-Kats and a Scotch egg,” she woefully recalled as her stomach growled. “There’s a takeaway place on the way that does fish and chips,” she hedged and he wrinkled his nose. “You don’t eat fish and chips,” she huffed. “What kind of a Scot are you?” 

“’m not really hungry,” he admitted, before back-peddling, “But we could stop – if you want.” 

Ellie put out the fire with some sand and picked up the empty petrol can. 

“We need petrol anyway, I can pick something up there,” she suggested and he nodded. 

Hardy didn’t object when she took the keys from him, but she could feel the prickle of his gaze on her all the way back to the morgue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Jack's crucial to Ellie's backstory in this AU, but I tried to make it clear that he's different from Chris Chibnall's Jack. Jack fell in love with his student when he met her (which is so wrong for so many reasons), but he kept any impure thoughts to himself in my AU head-canon and they were just friends. The underage sex accusation was completely false in this story, and Alice made the first move, years later after they'd gotten to know each other under different circumstances, and only when she was ready. Thanks for reading, hope to hear from y'all!**


	3. A Seed of Doubt that Destroys the Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the wake of Jack's execution, Ellie and Hardy grapple with crippling doubts and potential threats as they struggle to solve Danny's case.

Two frustrating weeks of dead ends passed in the wake of Jack’s death, and then abruptly everything happened at once. 

Their prime suspect Nige went MIA and a few days later their witness Susan was found dead on the same beach where Danny’s body had been found. There were two pin-prick punctures in Susan’s neck, but her body had been drained dry and there was no sign of strangulation. Hardy lost his temper, frightening everyone in CID except for Ellie. 

The M.E. wrote it off as another suicide, but Hardy and Ellie knew that it matched the same M.O. as the fledgling attacks seven months earlier. Ellie logged in so many hours of overtime with Hardy that week that she felt like a stranger in her own home. 

One night she blew up at Joe, asking him point-blank if he’d told someone that Jack was a vampire. The row snowballed from there with Joe accusing her of harbouring a monster in her own town. The fledglings and the deaths were brought up, and Joe was convinced that they needed to take the kids and move somewhere far away. He wanted her to give up her job, Danny’s case, and the only home she’d ever known for the safety of their children. But Ellie told him she couldn’t do it, not until they got justice for Danny.

Ellie struggled through the next day at work, feeling as if she was hungover. Her marriage wasn’t perfect, but Joe and her had never fought like that before. Her head and her heart ached from the tears she’d shed after Joe had fallen asleep beside her. 

“Alright, Millah?” Hardy asked tentatively as they sat in his office together.

“I’m worried that the fledgling might go after my family,” she confessed. 

“Danny wasn’t killed by a vampire, not even fledglings go after children,” he argued. 

“How can you be so certain?”

“Siring or feeding on a child is punishable by death,” he stated.

“So ‘s murdering an adult, but that’s never stopped any of them before,” she snapped. 

Hardy removed his glasses and set them down on the desk before her. Ellie stared at them wondering why the lenses bothered her. Everything about Hardy bothered her. He always had the scruffy appearance of someone who’d woken up on the wrong side of the bed, although she wasn’t sure if he ever slept at all. Two slices of toast were sitting on his desk, nibbled and shredded, and it bothered her that in all the hours they’d spent together she didn’t think she’d ever seen him eat. 

“The blood of a child it’s… _wrong_ ,” he explained, steepling his fingers. “Most fledgling’s need a steady diet of human blood for the first year, sometimes longer in order to survive, after that they can try animal blood or synthetic alternatives. Pre-pubescents’ blood can make a fledgling physically ill, just like the alternatives.”

“Speaking from experience?” she quipped.

“I used to be a Tracker for Scotland Police,” he informed her. “Unofficially,” he added, because the position had been dissolved years ago in the aftermath of the last vampire executions. She’d been a child at the time of the executions and Hardy didn’t look much older than her. But since the vampire courts had never been reinstated, they would’ve needed Trackers to round up those that were re-born or struggling to adapt in the aftermath. 

“Trust me, Miller, whoever killed Danny, it wasn’t a fledgling. These murders were done by two different killers, but we’ll get them,” he assured her, turning back to his computer, without his glasses.

“I didn’t, the last time.” Her voice sounded small, even to her own ears. She swallowed hard and stared at her hands. “My husband thinks we should leave town, at least until Danny’s killer is caught, but I feel like this is all somehow connected to me and it’s my fault that Jack, Danny and the others are dead.”

Hardy got up from the desk and hesitantly joined her on the sofa. 

“It’s not your fault,” he said. 

Ellie blinked back tears as his left hand hovered in the space between them, wavering between her shoulder and her knee. He settled on her sleeve, plucking at the material until she lifted her head to meet the solemn gaze of someone who had seen too many horrors for one lifetime. 

“Do you think you can catch them?” she wondered.

“I’m certain,” Hardy promised, and she believed him in spite of everything they were up against. 

“You’re not what I was expecting,” Ellie admitted and he tensed. She looked over his spartan desk void of pictures or anything personal, as if he’d arrived with nothing. It made more sense now, knowing he’d been a Tracker, programmed not to trust anyone and not to leave any trace of himself behind. Jack had called them Wraiths. 

“After the fledgling attacks, when Jack said he’d ask for help, I thought… Well, I thought they’d send in an assassin, maybe a scarier vampire, you know?” She shook her head; she’d been so daft to think that Jack had that much power or to think that anyone actually cared about her small rural town. “But you’re-” She stopped herself from telling him what she really thought of him, but judging from the way Hardy bristled next to her, he knew exactly how she viewed him. 

“You’re just a man,” she said and he lowered his hackles. “An annoyingly stubborn one,” she couldn’t help adding under her breath. 

“Do I irk you, Miller?” he asked, lifting a brow. 

“Seriously? You’re just figuring that out now?”

Hardy made a snuffling sound as he rose from the sofa that she might’ve mistaken for a laugh if he’d been anyone else. 

Ellie left his office, feeling a bit better than she had earlier. 

Later Brian asked her out for a drink and she told Hardy before she left for the evening, because she _had_ to tell someone. Ellie tried not to feel insulted by Hardy’s initial reaction, but she’d never be able to look at Brian again without thinking of him as _Dirty_ Brian or the facial expression Hardy had made. Ellie lingered by his desk, searching for an excuse not to go home to another row or a cold shoulder from the man whom she’d married.

Hardy had finished his toast at some point, but he looked like he needed to eat something more substantial. 

“Do you want me to grab us something to eat?” she asked impulsively, checking her watch. “There’s a shop open late that has sandwiches, they’re not the best, but-”

“I have an early appointment,” Hardy interrupted her and rubbed at his eyes.

“You should eat something and get some rest,” she urged him, tapping the edge of his desk. “You look terrible.”

Hardy scowled and slipped on his glasses, refocusing on his computer as he shooed her out. 

“Go home,” he told her, “That’s an order, Miller.”

Reluctantly, Ellie left and walked right into another vicious row with Joe because she was late again. 

That night she stayed up with a fussy Fred, worrying more about her boss than the man whose ring she wore on her finger. 

*

Hardy wasn’t lying – not entirely – he did have an early appointment or a very late appointment depending on how you looked at it. It was still dark out when he dragged himself to the designated meeting spot. The last time he’d been here the pub had been a dive where staff members did lines of coke in the restroom with their patrons, but now it was all shiny and new, full of mirrored surfaces and fancy lighting. 

Jocelyn had assured him it was still owned by the same family, but the grandson who had inherited it was under the mistaken impression that dressing it up would bring in wealthier clients and give the illusion of a more legitimate business. Hardy didn’t like the new security cameras. It was hypocritical of him but after he counted eight of them, he wouldn’t have been surprised if no one showed up in response to Jocelyn’s message. 

A few drunken stragglers were slumped over the bar, but they were either glued to their phones or high. Hardy had been assured that the staff was vetted and paid enough that they could be trusted not to repeat anything they might overhear, but he was anxious to get this over with as soon as possible. 

They were sitting at a table together; a haughty young man dressed in an expensive velvet suit and an attractive black woman with flecks of grey in the braids piled atop her head. 

“Alec Hardy,” he introduced himself, holding out a hand to them. The woman introduced herself as Gloria Stephens and the man gave him some snobbish posh name he’d clearly made up. 

“I’ll try to be brief,” Hardy started, “Two weeks ago, Jack was staked by a mob.” 

They seemed unsurprised and unconcerned by the news. Hardy wondered why they’d bothered coming. Chauncey or whatever the hell he called himself kept catching his own eye and looking at himself in all the mirrored surfaces, preening and adjusting his clothes with each new angle the room provided. Gloria on the other hand was watching Hardy warily. Hardy suspected she’d been turned in her fifties, but she was one of the most beautiful vampires he’d seen in years. And yet she seemed to be doing everything in her power to disguise her natural beauty, as her hand repeatedly flew to her frumpy jumper and one of the many glittery necklaces she wore to attract the eye there instead. 

“What do you want us to do about it?” Chauncey asked, as he discovered yet another enthralling reflection of himself over Hardy’s left shoulder. 

“Nothing,” Hardy sighed. “This isn’t about Jack, well, not entirely,” he sighed again and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Jack made his own decisions, but there were reports of a fledgling in the area. I need to know if you’ve heard or seen anything…” They stared at him blankly and Hardy realized that this was a complete waste of his time. He switched tactics. “Listen, I’ve got dead bodies piling up in Broadchurch. I’m not asking for help, but I don’t want a bloody turf war on top of that, do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal,” Chauncey drawled, smiling and propping his chin up on his fist. “You don’t have to worry about us. Gloria’s obsessed with her bakery and I’m focusing on my music and my fashion line, for now. Speaking of which, you could use a new suit darling, shabby and dishevelled is _so_ last year.” 

Hardy suppressed the urge to roll his eyes and showed them the list of vampires who were reportedly still living in the area. 

“I don’t know them,” Chauncey said, barely looking at the list, as he was distracted again by his reflection. “Are we done yet?” he whinged, “I have to be in London by six and I need time to prep.” 

“Go,” Hardy dismissed him and Chauncey strutted off before he changed his mind. Hardy expected Gloria to scoot out after him, but she took a moment to scan the list that Jocelyn and Baxter had helped him assemble. 

“Jack called him Narcissus,” Gloria remarked, her eyes twinkling, before she sobered at the reminder that Jack was gone. “Chauncey’s not a threat. He’s disgusted by violence and real blood, and he only cares about himself.”

“What about the rest?” Hardy nodded at the list in her hand. 

Gloria unhooked a pen from one of her necklaces and crossed off three names. 

“Their human neighbours turned on them and executed them, you won’t find any evidence.” She made a dash next to two more names. “They’re hermits living in the countryside, I think Stoker comes out twice a year to stock them up on supplies.” Her pen hovered over the list. “The Count’s more active, he gets lonely, but he has OCD and he was afraid to attend this meeting. He won’t be any trouble.” 

She tapped her pen against the paper and starred two more names.

“Leo’s been traveling, but he could claim the territory if he returns. And this one’s allegedly attempted to sire children in other territories, but you already know that _Wraith_.”

Hardy ripped the paper out of her hands and stared at the names she’d starred, one of which he’d added on a whim. 

“You seem to know an awful lot about the few that are left,” he said, arching a brow. “I was under the impression that Jack ran this territory, but you appear to have everything well in hand.”

She laughed, a gorgeous sound that turned the heads of all the remaining patrons at the bar, regardless of how high or self-absorbed they might’ve been. Even Hardy straightened up and fixed his tie. 

“I help when I can,” she acknowledged, “But my loyalty lies with my sisters, not with the Institute.” Hardy opened his mouth to argue with her, but she silenced him with another lovely smile. “Your boss Jocelyn’s one of the good ones,” she admitted, “But I don’t owe her or you any allegiance.”

“That’s not why I called this meeting,” Hardy denied it, but he thought of Miller so protective of her stupid town and the stupid smiley people. 

Hardy was suddenly faced with the magnitude of what Jack had done and what a power vacuum could mean for someone like Miller, Marked by the former leader of an unclaimed territory. With the vampire courts dissolved and the population slowly recovering, Hardy had no idea what kind of anarchy could take place, but he’d dealt with a few primitive situations where the new leader had taken out the Marked ones along with their predecessor or had tried to claim them for themselves.

“Gloria,” he said beseechingly, “I only need you to take over temporarily until Jocelyn can find someone more experienced and willing-”

“No,” Gloria cut him off, fingering another one of her necklaces, some sort of sparkly pentagram. 

“I’m sorry, Hardy, I really am, but I can’t help you,” she apologized, her eyes brimming with a familiar sort of pity. “I heard about what happened in Sandbrook.”

Hardy flinched and folded up the list of names. 

“Thank you for your time, Gloria.” He shoved the list into his suit jacket and stood. But she caught his arm before he could walk away. 

“She says she forgives you for the pendant and she’s sorry about Daisy.”

Hardy froze, but hearing her name was enough to ignite the constant ache in his chest, except this time it exploded like a bomb.

“Who told you that?” he demanded, but Gloria gave him another one of her sad smiles as she backed away. 

“I don’t ask for the names of my sisters,” she said cryptically, fiddling with the pentagram, “I just receive their messages and pass them along.”

“Gloria,” Hardy pleaded with her, but the aftermath of the explosion had left shrapnel in his chest, ripping and shredding through every bruise, every scar, and every old festering wound he carried with him since Pippa’s body and the swift current of a river nearly dragged him to a watery grave.

“ _Gloria_.” He called after her, but by the time he rushed outside, she was already gone. 

Hardy kicked the side of the building and twisted around so that his back was to it. He hadn’t been able to protect Jack, he’d lost their prime suspect in Danny Latimer’s murder, he had another dead body on his hands, and he had at least one fledgling and a ‘wild’ in the area that didn’t follow the rules. And now he might have a bloody turf war where Miller could potentially end up in the cross-fire. Hardy slid down to the ground and brought his knees up to his chest. There was a searing, throbbing pain behind his eyes, but he didn’t cry as he buried his head in his hands. 

He hadn’t cried in years. Not since that horrible morning when he’d finally noticed that he was missing his wedding ring. 

After everything he’d been through since then, he wasn’t sure if he was capable of tears anymore. 

*

Another nasty row with Joe had Ellie sleepwalking through long days with no progress. Her sister claimed that she’d spotted Nige disposing of something on the night of Danny’s death, but Ellie needed to bribe her with one hundred quid before she was willing to share this information. A troubling blood connection was revealed between Susan and Nige, but since Nige’s father had been human and dead for years, Ellie didn’t understand how it intersected with Danny or the other murders. 

Ellie wasn’t the only one off her game, Hardy lost his balance and careened into a wall after Danny’s memorial service. He’d been paler and shakier the last few days, earning himself the nickname _Shitface_ from their colleagues. He’d also accused Ellie’s own son of being involved in Danny’s murder after the animosity between the boys had come to light. Ellie thought he’d lost his mind when he’d insisted upon interviewing Tom, but she didn’t have a choice. 

“We’re close, Miller, I can feel it,” he assured her.

Two days after Tom’s interview, they received an anonymous phone call that they traced back to the hut. Hardy was ecstatic.

“He’s panicking, Millah,” he exclaimed, clapping her on the back with enough force to almost knock her legs out from underneath her. 

His eyes were feverishly bright as they hurried out of the office together. Fog was rolling in off the water, requiring her to drive the winding roads slower than her impatient boss would’ve liked. Hardy was practically twitching by the time they arrived. Ellie had barely parked the car before he was out of it, sniffing around the hut. 

“We’ve got him,” he told her and then a shadow exploded out of the fog. 

Hardy bolted after the dark figure, disappearing in the curling wisps of mist. Ellie jogged after them, tripping and stumbling in the dark. The fog was so thick now that her torchlight scarcely penetrated. She’d lost sight of Hardy and their suspect, but she managed to track the mobile’s signal to the dry docks. 

Thanks to Jack, Ellie had always felt at home surrounded by boats; she could navigate some of the worst storms and no amount of fog or darkness scared her at sea. But walking through the misty dry docks made Ellie feel like she’d entered a graveyard. Ghost ships rose out of the shadows, shelled out husks of what they’d once been, eerily stock still and in various states of disrepair. The hairs on the back of her neck stood erect and she shivered in the unnatural silence. 

There were too many places to hide, Danny’s murderer could be anywhere.

A scrabbling noise drew her attention to her left and she squinted into the feeble light her torch provided. The smoky fog shrouded everything and played tricks on her, but Ellie didn’t think she was alone anymore. Her heart skipped a beat.

“Hardy?” 

She thought she’d seen someone climbing into one of the boats, but the sound of pounding feet had her whirling to look behind her. 

A man ploughed into her, and Ellie screamed as they hit the ground in a tangled mess of limbs. 

“HARDY! HELP!”

She rolled to one side, taking a swing at the suspect’s head with her metal torch, but the blow didn’t deter them. Her assailant wasn’t human, not anymore. They were on top of her in an instant. 

Ellie glimpsed bloodshot eyes and a flash of jagged white teeth, and then the torch was batted from her hand. The vampire didn’t know its own strength and she was thrown into another boat, hard enough that the supports actually splintered. Ellie dove out of the way as the fledgling threw itself at the spot where she’d just been. The boat groaned ominously and crashed down between them. 

Ellie scrambled to her feet, but she was dizzy and the fledgling had already smelled her. Even if she could run, it would hunt her down and kill her. She shouted again for Hardy as she ducked beneath a lower dry dock. But she couldn’t hide from them for long. 

The creature clawed and clambered up over the gunwale, jumping from the stern and landing in a crouch in front of her. 

He stood, his hood falling back to reveal a bald head and a familiar face ravaged by madness and an unquenchable thirst for her blood. Ellie was horrified by the sudden slam of recognition. 

“Oh, God,” she gasped. “ _N-nige_?”

He paused with his head cocked. 

“Nige, you don’t want to do this,” she pleaded with him, holding her hands aloft. “Please, Nige. It’s Ellie. Remember? We had dinner together a few weeks back, you cooked-” But Nige’s diet had changed drastically and he was past the point of reasoning. 

“HARDY!” she yelled as he launched himself at her. Nige pinned her down and Ellie whimpered, frantically pushing and shoving at his chest and kicking wildly. 

Nige snarled something intelligible and slammed her head into the ground. Stars exploded before her eyes as his incisors grazed her skin. Ellie thought of Tom and Fred, but as Nige licked her throat and prepared to suck her dry, she used her last lungful of air to scream for Hardy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***cringes* Haven't written these genres for a looooong time, as y'all can tell, 'm a bit rusty. Hope y'all had a Happy All-Hallows, Dias de los Muertos, Sanhaim, All Saints Day, PSL day, Hocus Pocus day or whatever Fall festival you choose to celebrate.**


	4. A Hunger that Ravages the Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Hardy missing, Ellie tries not to die, but the next secret she uncovers might be the death of her.

Hardy groaned as he hit the ground, feeling the sharp jolt of the impact echoing in every bone, strained muscle and battered organ in his body. _Fucking fledglings_. This one had had an unhealthy taste for hunting _before_ he’d been turned, Hardy should’ve known better. He’d let down his guard for a split second, but that was all it took for the young vampire to attack. 

Hardy couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in this much pain, probably before they’d cut off and confiscated his wedding ring. His whole body was screaming at him and he was so nauseous. Curling his left hand into a fist, he struggled to focus on the silver scar that was a tattooed reminder of everything that had been taken from him and everything that he could still lose. He needed to get up before the fledgling came back to finish him, but his head was throbbing so badly that he was having difficulty remembering why it was so important. 

“ _Hardy_!”

His eyes snapped open. 

“ _Miller_ ,” he breathed. As if she’d heard him, she screamed for him again. 

He stood up, braced himself, and yanked the harpoon out. 

*

Ellie squeezed her eyes shut, but the sting of Nige’s fangs abruptly stopped. The pressure on her chest had lessened and then lifted altogether. She could breathe again. Her heart was beating so fast that she couldn’t hear anything over the hammering. She wondered if this was what it felt like to be bitten, and if so, then it wasn’t so bad after all. 

Inhaling shakily, she cracked open an eye. Nige wasn’t on top of her, but she was still in the dry docks. She sat up, feeling woozy and achy from the attack. Her neck and the back of her head hurt, but she didn’t have time to sort out her injuries. Standing, she teetered like a wobbly new-born fawn. 

Ellie wasn’t hallucinating, Nige had vanished into the fog.

“Hardy?” she called. “ _Hardy_!” 

The silence held no answers. 

Ellie refused to consider the likelihood that Nige had gotten to Hardy first. 

She crawled around in the dark, searching through the rubble for her torch and her mobile. She’d finally located them, when the boat to her left _exploded_. 

Ellie ducked and covered her head as sawdust and splinters of wood rained down around her. She stayed on the ground as two snarling creatures passed by her in a whirlwind. They were moving so fast. Her human eyes could barely follow the blur of movement. Nige was fighting with something that was capable of the same speed and strength as him. 

There were _two_ vampires now. 

Bloody _fucking_ hell. 

Ellie sent out an alert to the station, but she doubted anyone would understand the gravity of the situation or bring the proper equipment. She was on her own. 

Ellie rang Hardy, because she wouldn’t – she _couldn’t_ \- believe that the obstinate bastard might already be dead. He didn’t pick up, so she left him a whispered message from beneath the dry dock, warning him about Nige and the other vampire. Cursing how bloody useless he was in a crisis; she eyed the splintered boards around her. Ellie inspected all of them, before she selected a particularly sharp one. She sawed at it until she had a makeshift stake and then shoving aside her fears, she went after the vampires.

Sniffling, she hastily typed out a last message to Joe, telling him she loved him and the boys. A pinging noise made her hesitate; it sounded like someone had received a text in the boat she was passing underneath. 

Distracted, Ellie didn’t notice that one of the vampires had broken away and was racing toward her from the opposite end of the boatyard. 

Luckily, someone else did. 

“ _MILLER_!” 

Ellie wheeled around, just in time to drive her homemade stake into Nige’s heart. She rammed it in over and over again until Nige’s knees buckled underneath him. And she kept stabbing him until Nige was twitching and jerking beneath her. Her arms tired and tears flooded down her cheeks, but she didn’t give up. She couldn’t. 

“Ellie,” Nige moaned with a tiny flicker of recognition. “P-P-Please,” he begged, scrabbling at her wrist with his filthy nails. 

A hand gripped her shoulder. Ellie yanked the stake from Nige’s bloody chest, whirling on a white-faced Hardy.

“Where the _fuck_ have you been?” she demanded, nearly dropping her stake. 

“Enough,” Hardy barked, but his voice sounded odd, and his clothes were torn and stained with something dark. It looked an awful lot like blood, a _lot_ of blood. 

“Hardy,” she gasped as the boatyard started to spin around them. 

Hardy shoved her aside as Nige got up on his knees. Grasping Nige’s head between his hands, he bent down to whisper something in his ear. 

“Hardy, he’s a-”

An audible crack robbed her of speech. Nige collapsed with his head twisted at an odd angle. 

Hardy held out his palm and she put the stake into it. Elle watched from somewhere outside of herself as Hardy knelt and hacked at Nige’s neck until he’d practically severed it from his body. It didn’t take him as long as it should’ve. 

“That should do it. We can’t risk a fire here, too many accelerants.” Hardy sat back on his heels and scanned the boatyard. 

“Did you see anyone else?” he asked, but Ellie was fixated on her only weapon in his blood-stained hand. 

“Miller?” 

He kept his face deliberately shielded from her and his palm pressed against his stomach, but she knew what he was hiding from her. 

Ellie felt like a bloody idiot for missing the signs; Hardy never ate or drank anything, he _loathed_ being on the water, he’d made her interrogate the Reverend alone, and his touch had chilled her when they’d burned Jack’s body. Even Jack had tried to warn her what had to be done if she asked for help with a ‘wild’ vampire. Jack had been worried about Hardy being in close proximity to her, but he must’ve trusted him and her own judgment or he would’ve gotten rid Hardy. 

Right now, Ellie was wondering if Jack had made a horrible mistake. Hardy cocked his head like Nige had in the moments before he struck, and Ellie’s heart banged against her rib cage. She stumbled back a step and slammed into one of the support beams. 

“Go back to the car,” Hardy said suddenly. He’d barely moved a muscle, but she knew he could hear her heart beating. He could track her if she ran. 

“They’re coming,” Ellie blurted as she broke out into a cold sweat. “I sent out an alert.”

“Danny’s killer is still here,” Hardy growled and got to his feet with some difficulty.

“Hardy, you – you should go,” Ellie stuttered as he turned toward her. Hardy was so pale he was nearly translucent in the eerie glow of the thinning fog. His fingers were slick with blackish blood and his glistening fangs had sank into his lower lip. 

“Hardy,” she pleaded.

“Shut up,” he hissed. 

“Don’t tell me to shut up,” she sniped back at him, folding her arms over her chest. “You’re hurt!”

“‘M fine,” he grunted and offered her the stake. “Go back to the car.”

Ellie reached for it, their fingers colliding like fire and ice. Hardy’s freezing hand tightened convulsively around hers, and he yanked her toward him with the stake pointed directly at his heart. The jagged tip snagged in the fabric of his coat and stopped, but Ellie could push it in if she wanted to. It wouldn’t kill him, but it might buy her enough time to reach the car. 

Hardy’s nose grazed her cheek and she shuddered, but held onto the stake.

“Don’t move,” he whispered, “He’s in the boat behind you.”

Ellie stifled a whimper as his ice-cold fingers tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She could smell the blood on him and felt him painting it on her cheek. 

“I’m going to go get him,” he told her softly, “Stay right here.” 

He let go of her by slow degrees, as if he had to fight with himself to do so. Ellie told herself over and over to plunge the fucking stake into him, but once he released her, the weapon slipped from her nerveless fingers. 

Hardy’s gaze was arrested by the movement and the suspect leapt out from behind him. Hardy whipped around to meet him, grasping him by the throat. He lifted the man as if he were a ragdoll, ramming him against the side of the boat, denting the fiberglass. She heard the feral hunger in his snarl and realized what was about to happen. 

“Hardy, _no_!” she cried. “Drop him!” 

She was shocked when Hardy obeyed her and their suspect crumpled to the ground. 

The hooded man got up and threw something into Hardy’s face. Hissing, Hardy recoiled, but Ellie was already lunging for the suspect. 

The man was ready for her, scooping up her fallen stake and driving it up toward her weaker side. Ellie dodged the stake, but his fist caught her on her right flank and the stake tore through her clothes, scraping her ribs. The blow knocked the wind out of her and the suspect escaped. 

Ellie yelled at Hardy to go after him, but the useless vampire was bent over at the waist and dry heaving on the asphalt. She could smell the anointed oil that the rosary beads had been soaked in that had burned him. 

“Shit. Shit. _Shit_!”

Kicking aside the consecrated rosary beads, she alerted their backup that the suspect was running back toward the hut. 

“C’mon, don’t tell me a crucifix that small-” She broke off as he gagged and coughed up blackish blood. Hardy had his hands over his stomach, but he couldn’t disguise the spreading bloodstain saturating his clothes. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?” 

“Get back!” Hardy held up a hand, warding her off. 

“I knew you were hurt,” she snapped and he growled at her. 

“Go. _Now_.”

“No.” Ellie refused, stubbornly squatting down next to him. Hardy whined when Ellie touched him, and she told him to quit being a baby. Batting his hands away, she inspected the ghastly gut wound that was slowly but miraculously healing itself. 

“You lost a lot of blood,” Ellie noted, frowning. “But that shouldn’t be a problem for you…” she trailed off, because Hardy suddenly had an iron-clad grip on her wrist. 

“Miller,” Hardy croaked. He was shaking. 

“When was the last time you fed?” she asked tremulously.

“Please,” Hardy rasped, “Please, go.”

“Jack’s got a supply,” she said blithely, “If we can get you there, you’ll be good as new.” She grasped his other hand, trying to drag him up with her, but he was dead weight and her adrenaline rush was wearing off. They’d barely managed a few yards, before Hardy and gravity brought her down with him. 

“ _Go_ ,” he snarled, shoving her away from him. Ellie got up again, but she was weak and the whole boatyard was tilting and tipping away from her as another frightening outcome came to her. 

“Does Jenkinson or any of the others know _what_ you are?” she asked. Hardy shook his head, shuddering as his fangs split open his lower lip. If anyone came across him in this state, Hardy would suffer the same fate as Jack or worse. 

“They’ll burn you,” she realized and the thought of Hardy’s staked body on that beach instead of Jack’s… She tried to shake the image from her mind, but she was having trouble focusing on anything as a wave of nausea washed over her. Her legs abruptly gave out on her, but Hardy caught her before she hit the ground. He grimaced as she accidentally elbowed his wound, a pained hiss escaping through his clenched teeth. 

“Don’t move,” Hardy snapped and Ellie froze. Gingerly, he tilted her head up toward him, examining her. She winced as his thumb grazed the spot where Nige’s fangs had punctured her. “ _Shit_ ,” he swore and closed his eyes. “He bit you.”

Ellie freaked out, slapping his hand away.

“I don’t want to turn!”

“You’re not going to turn,” he assured her, seizing her hand and lowering it to her chest. “Hold still. I need to close it off or it’ll get infected – just don’t move.” Hardy licked his thumb and rubbed it over the open bite. Ellie tried to stay still, but she flinched when he applied too much pressure. His answering growl startled her. She’d torn away from him, before she remembered why she shouldn’t. 

Hardy didn’t slam her to the ground, he wasn’t rough with her. He embraced her like a lover, cushioning her fall. 

“Ellie,” he gasped and his hand slid up into her hair where there was a dull ache. Ellie felt a stabbing pain where he touched her and a sinking realization hit her. His fingers trembled against her scalp and he burrowed his face into her neck. “Fuck, Ellie,” he moaned. 

“Don’t _Ellie_ me.” She tugged away from him, but Hardy jerked her back against him. 

“You let our suspect get away,” he groaned.

“You were going to suck him dry,” she scolded him as he snuffled against her throat.

“He deserved to die after what he did to Danny and to you,” he spat and curled himself around her. 

“You’re not like him, Hardy,” she reminded him, pressing a hand against his chest and appealing to his humanity. “You’re not a monster.”

“Millah, I can’t,” he whispered and she felt the tears against her neck, wet and bloody. He’d already lost too much blood, she was bleeding from two, maybe three different places, and he was _starving_. 

“I’m sorry,” Hardy apologized raggedly. 

It was too late now. If she ran or even moved, Hardy would bite her or worse he’d follow her home. He wasn’t going to let her go. This was why Jack had daily alarms set so he never missed a feeding, whilst Hardy could barely remember to go back to his hotel room at night. The stake was out of her reach, and she’d told backup to head for the hut instead of the dry docks. 

Ellie only had one chance, one shot at seeing her kids and Joe again, and it was a gamble that depended entirely on Hardy and a myth from the Golden Age.

“Quit being so emotional,” she sighed, petting his hair. 

“ _Me_? Have you met yourself?” he scoffed, clinging hard to his humanity.

“C’mere,” she urged him. It took every bit of strength in her to keep her voice and hand steady as she brought his head closer to her fluttering pulse. 

“No.” He cringed and turned his head away. 

“For fuck’s sake, Hardy, we don’t have time for your existential crisis, just take a bloody drink.”

Hardy sighed and brushed her hair away from her face with a surprising amount of tenderness. She shivered as his cool fingers traced over the spot where Nige had bitten her earlier. He licked her pulse point and carefully held himself over her. Ellie remembered reading a banned book once where a paid donor compared the act to a kiss, she’d wondered at the time why anyone would voluntarily do it, but now she understood. 

“Are you going to kiss me or not?” she quipped feebly.

“‘M not kissing you, you’re married,” he reminded her.

“ _Happily_ married,” she corrected him, but the memory of the recent rows with her husband brought fresh tears to her eyes. She might never get the chance to make up with Joe, and to be honest she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to. It was strange that these were the thoughts that crossed her mind as she entrusted Hardy with her life. 

“You won’t turn me or accidentally kill me, right? You’ve been around forever, must’ve done this hundreds of times with a donor, haven’t you? Will it hurt?” she asked nervously, remembering the brief stinging pain. 

“It might if you won’t stop asking me bloody questions,” Hardy retorted, and oddly she found this more comforting than when he gentled his voice. “Relax, Miller,” he soothed her. 

“Don’t get greedy,” she warned him, her hand clenching in his silky hair. The air was thick with his blood and hers, but underneath it all, she could smell that alluring subtle scent he’d left all over the station and her car. “Trust me, Hardy, you don’t want to spend eternity with me nagging at your conscience.”

Hardy made a strangled sound and bit her throat. Ellie tensed up, but Hardy’s hands that had been ice cold, were warming to her. He lapped at the wound and caressed her as he drank from her. 

Wispy tendrils of fog crept in to claim them, cocooning and sweeping them away from reality. Ellie’s brain went fuzzy too and the rest of the world swam out of focus. Hardy was the only thing left that she could anchor herself to as all thoughts of her children, Joe, the case, and everything else fled.

“I trust you,” she whispered, pulling him closer, “I trust you to stop.”

Hardy nuzzled her, dragging his tongue along the wound again, and everything went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Just to be clear, Ellie gave her consent this time vs. with Nige. Paid donors weren't drained or turned, they just ideally let vampires drink small amounts. One pint takes 56 days to recover from, two pints takes 112 days before you can give again. Standard amount of time you can go between blood donations to RL blood banks/hospitals, so smaller amounts would take less time. I'm not saying everyone followed the rules, but that's how it was supposed to work during the Golden Age Ellie heard about. Sorry for the cliffhanger! The next chapter shouldn't end in one and hopefully it will not coincide with the RL cliffhanger that is currently the US presidential election. Figured y'all could use a campy distraction from the train-wreck that is 2020. Thanks for reading!**


	5. A Rage the Likes of Which You Would Not Believe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy hates himself and regrets everything, but their suspect might've left more than a set of rosary beads behind.

The shrill screams of the police sirens were what saved them, even if they were headed in the wrong direction. It took Hardy three of Miller’s slowing heartbeats to snap himself out of the enthralling rhythm of the opening and closing of valves and the rush of blood that followed. Her blood tasted better than any of the shitty synthetics or alternatives, but the sight of her motionless, pale and bloody was enough to make him want to hurl it all back up. 

He carefully sealed off the wound, hurriedly scooped her up and carried her back to the car. Buckling her into the passenger seat, he wrapped her scarf around the shallow scalp wound that was still bleeding a bit. The blood loss and the natural sedatives in his saliva should keep her sedated for at least another hour or two, maybe longer. Hardy had no way of gaging how much he’d taken from her or how much she’d already lost; he wasn’t a doctor, but he needed to get her to one immediately. 

“You’re okay,” he told her and himself over and over again as he sped out of the lot. She flopped against the car door and mumbled something as they took a hard turn, but she was as white as a ghost. “You’ll be okay,” he prayed. 

He fished out his mobile, that had somehow come away from the fight in better condition than him, and called Baxter. 

Doctor Martin Baxter picked up on the third ring and Hardy spoke before he could get a word in. 

“I need your help.”

“Now’s not a good time, Hardy, I’ve got a flight-”

“I bit someone,” Hardy interrupted him and Baxter was so quiet that he wondered if he’d hung up. He glanced over at his partner for as long as the road would allow him. “She’s lost a lot of blood, but she should be okay once you patch her up.”

“Alec…”

“I’m calling in that favour you owe me. Meet me at Hospital in fifteen.”

“I don’t even work there anymore,” Baxter sputtered, but that was no excuse for someone like him and they both knew it. “What happened? You’ve never slipped-”

“I’ll see you there, Baxter.” He rang off, knowing that Baxter’s curiosity would win out in the end. Hardy hoped that it would be sooner, rather than later. 

He made it there in record time and gently shook Miller awake. Her head lolled to one side, but her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to focus on him. 

“Joe?” she whispered as he untangled her from the seatbelt. 

“Hardy,” he corrected her and nervously asked, “Do you remember what happened?” She felt the blood-soaked scarf he’d wrapped around her head and grimaced. The bite on her neck had already closed up, thank god. 

“Where are we?” she slurred as he helped her from the vehicle.

“Hospital.”

Ellie was swaying and barely able to keep her eyes open. Hardy slipped an arm under her knees and another behind her back, cradling her in his arms. She stirred again as they neared the glow of the hospital’s entrance. 

“Hardy?” 

Hushing her, he carried her past the signs for A&E and into the lift, but he nearly let go of her when he felt her warm fingertips on his cheeks. 

“Crying,” she mumbled as her hand fell away from his face. 

“Don’t cry,” he murmured. With his hands full, he touched the tip of his nose to her hairline. “You’ll be fine, I promise, we’re almost there.”

“Hardy,” she rasped and reached for his face again. Her fingertips came away stained coppery red and Hardy discovered that he was in fact capable of some form of tears. 

“Sorry.” His voice cracked and more disgustingly bloody tears welled up in his eyes, blurring his vision that had been so red-hazed earlier that he hadn’t even noticed. “Miller, I’m so sorry,” he apologized as the doors opened onto a private ward.

Fortunately, Baxter was standing right outside the lift, prepared to take her from him. Even though Hardy had told him he’d bit her, the doctor appeared to be shellshocked by the sight of them. 

“Take care of her,” Hardy said thickly and handed her off to one of the few allies he had left. 

Hardy had to fight with himself not to follow them down the hall or rip Baxter’s throat open. 

Someone handed him a towel and pointed him to the restroom. Cleaning himself up helped. He felt a bit more human and less of a primitive beast when Baxter was ready to discuss Miller’s condition. 

“Is she alright?” he asked anxiously as they sat down together in an empty office. 

“She’ll be fine with the proper treatment,” Baxter assured him. Hardy relaxed until the doctor came around to perch on the edge of the desk in front of him.

“What were you thinking Hardy?” Baxter chided him, “Don’t you realize what’s at stake? If it gets out that you bit someone-”

“I know,” Hardy cut him off, his voice trembling. He ran a hand through his hair and down his face. “The fledgling attacked me first. I wasn’t paying attention and he nearly finished me off,” he explained and Baxter shook his head.

“That’s no excuse.”

“I interrupted him feeding on her.” He paused, recollecting the terrifying moment when he’d spotted Nige on top of her. He tugged at his earlobe. “I needed to close off the wound, but I hadn’t fed in a while, and the fledgling had put a bloody harpoon through me,” he spat. 

“Hardy,” Baxter sighed and folded his arms over his chest. “I have to tell Jocelyn.”

“No, you won’t,” Hardy said and Baxter stared him down. 

“I had to take over Jack’s territory after he got staked by a mob,” Hardy revealed to a startled Baxter. “Not by choice,” he clarified, “But the fledgling was questioning _my_ authority whether he knew it or not, and Miller – Ellie – she was _Marked_ by Jack. Jack _Mated_ with her birth mother.” 

Baxter’s jaw slackened. 

“Jack Adams? The oldest vampire living freely in the UK?”

“He was going by Jack Marshall when he passed. His Mate died in a car accident,” Hardy informed him, “But Jack tied his lifeline to the daughter.”

It took Baxter a moment to digest all of this new information. 

“And you just bit her,” Baxter said slowly, “Which means…”

“You can’t tell Jocelyn or the Institute,” Hardy growled. 

Baxter left the desk and sat down heavily in the chair next to him. 

“You know I don’t care about politics. I only adhere to the laws of science and medicine. I’ll always be in your debt after you vouched for me, Alec, and I respect your decisions,” he said with a rueful smile, “But I’m leaving tomorrow. I finally got approval and accepted into Doctors without Borders. I won’t tell Jocelyn or the Institute what you’ve done here, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you. You’re on your own, Alec.”

Hardy felt his shoulders slump at the loss of the only reliable vampire ally he had left. He’d burned through every other favour and lost contact with everyone else. Baxter dropped a hand to his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Alec, but you have to change all of this,” the doctor advised him, “If you don’t, you’ll wind up like Jack.”

“You bloody doctors, you always think you know everything,” Hardy said gruffly as Baxter stood. 

“I know these are unusual circumstances and I’m not planning on telling anyone, but you understand the standard protocol?” Baxter left it as a question, but Hardy felt queasy at the thought of what had to be done to ensure the safety of everyone involved in the incident. Baxter was the best person to do it, he’d be gentle with her, and yet Hardy balked at the thought of anyone laying hands on Miller, even if it was for her own benefit.

“Only if she understands the process fully and gives her consent,” Hardy told him.

“And you’ll respect her decision,” Baxter said sharply, and Hardy nodded. Hardy stood up and held out his hand to the doctor. 

“Thanks, Baxter.”

He turned to go, but something snagged his attention. 

“Are those her things?” 

“Yes,” Baxter confirmed, handing them over to him. “Most of her clothing’s soaked in blood. I don’t think covering her dry cleaner’s bill is going to cut it this time,” he quipped. As Baxter lifted the unsealed bag, Hardy caught a whiff of something that he hadn’t been able to place, because he’d been so fixated on Nige, Miller’s safety and then her blood. 

“What is it, Hardy?”

After everything that had happened, Hardy’s priorities had understandably shifted, but now he was kicking himself for not following up on it earlier. He dug out Miller’s phone, unlocked it by tracing the greasy fingerprints she’d left whilst eating earlier, and found the last text she’d sent. 

Hardy felt the knot in his chest, heavy as an anchor and blisteringly hot with a rage the likes of which he hadn’t felt in a very long time. It was one thing for a new-born fledgling to attack someone, or a fearful mob to stake a vampire they felt threatened by, but this sort of betrayal was sickening and inexcusable. 

“Baxter, don’t let her leave.”

“What?” The doctor looked up from the paperwork he was forging. 

“Keep her here,” Hardy ordered. “No one comes up to her room without my permission. Don’t let her call or receive calls from anyone but me. If her immediate family or work contacts her, you put them through to my mobile phone, understood?”

Baxter opened and closed his mouth, but he knew Hardy well enough not to protest. Something was wrong, and he trusted Hardy to fix it. 

“Be quick about it. Someone’s going to notice that she’s missing,” Baxter warned him. 

Hardy fervently hoped it wouldn’t take him that long. 

*

It was the valise lying open on the bed that confirmed everything. On top of the pile of hastily packed clothing, there were three sets of rosary beads nearly identical to the one that had burned Hardy. He was willing to wager two hundred quid that those were expensive sanctified gifts from Jack for the Millers’ protection. Tipping the suitcase over, he kicked the bundle of clothing and the sacred objects buried within under the bed. 

They were no match for the unholy rage that was building within him.

Hardy was glad he’d bribed Lucy with three hundred quid to take the kids to a hotel. It had been embarrassingly easy to convince her and probably hadn’t required that much money, but he’d felt guilty.

Down the hall, the shower switched off and Hardy waited. 

“Is that you, love?” Hardy heard hesitant footsteps and a heartbeat that was too rapid to belong to someone who had nothing to hide. “You’re late again. I left the boys with Lucy, thought it best if we discuss this without them here. Listen, El, I’m sure you’re aware that there’s another vampire in Broadchurch. We need to leave tonight. If you don’t want to go, then I’m taking Tom and Fred with me.”

Joe Miller stopped in the doorway and paled at the sight of Hardy with his phone in his hands. His eyes flicked to the discarded pile of clothing and then to the crucifix hanging over the bed that was doing nothing to deter Hardy’s presence. Joe started to back out of the bedroom, undoubtedly going for another stash of sacred objects Jack had instructed Ellie to squirrel away somewhere. Hardy growled at him to stop.

Hardy’s self-control was fraying; he didn’t even attempt to hide his fangs.

“If you try to run or lie to me, I’ll rip your heart out,” Hardy threatened him and all of the blood drained out of Joe’s face. 

“I won’t tell anyone,” Joe cried, “Just let me go!”

“Tell me what happened to Danny, Joe.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joe squeaked. Hardy could smell his guilt and the sweat pouring off of him. The man’s eyes darted to the nightstand and Hardy ripped the drawer out of it, emptying the contents. Danny’s smartphone was hidden inside an old cigar box.

“This is Danny’s smartphone, the one whose signal we traced to the hut tonight. The same one that received incriminating texts from your son and one other number. Your number Joe,” Hardy reminded him and Joe’s eyes bulged. 

“Tom has nothing to do with this,” he protested.

“Then come clean, Joe,” Hardy urged him and something finally penetrated Joe’s selfishness. 

“Where are my children?”

“Safe with their Aunt,” he assured Joe. The man breathed a sigh of relief and sagged against the doorway. The knot in Hardy’s chest coiled tighter and burned hotter.

“You don’t seem concerned about your wife,” he observed darkly. Joe’s face changed, only for an instant, but Hardy caught the flash of hatred. 

“She’s been working late hours,” he scoffed, shrugging. “The safety of our children isn’t a priority for her anymore,” he added bitterly. 

“On the contrary, I think catching the murderer of an eleven-year-old boy is very important to the safety of her children. Don’t you agree, Joe?” He arched a brow and passed Danny’s phone from one hand to the other. “Or is there a reason why you’ve been keeping Danny’s phone and you don’t want your wife or the town finding out that Danny’s killer wasn’t a vampire, but a human and someone he trusted.”

“No, it was that filthy blood-sucker. Jack was guilty,” Joe spat as if saying it enough could make it true. “He was a paedo and a monster. You’re one too. You – _you_ killed my wife.” He pointed a finger at Hardy, accusingly. Hardy’s fury grew, because Joe had stuck around long enough to watch two different vampires grab the woman he’d married, and he’d ran away without even trying to intervene.

“She was screaming for help and you were willing to _let_ her die,” Hardy snarled and Joe’s face hardened. 

“She _deserved_ to die for protecting monsters like you-”

Hardy was across the room before Joe could finish that sentence. He didn’t have to lay a hand on the human, his fangs were enough to make the spineless man cower. 

“Tell me the truth, Joe.”

“You can’t prove I was there,” Joe argued with whatever remaining courage he dredged up, but he was a coward at heart. “You can’t prove I killed Danny.” 

“Ellie can,” Hardy revealed and Joe’s eyes widened in horror. The fact that Joe had been banking on Ellie’s death made Hardy angrier. 

Hardy reached for Joe’s throat. The man howled and nearly wet himself, although Hardy had barely touched him. Hardy grasped the chain Joe was wearing and yanked the St. Mark’s medal from his neck. 

“This isn’t going to help you anymore,” he told Joe, dangling it in his face, “It only protects the honest and I can smell a lie.” The medal was literally burning Hardy’s skin, but he didn’t feel it. His fiery rage had taken on a hallowed quality of its own. 

“I want the truth, Joe. _Now_.”

*

Ellie woke up in hospital with no recollection as to how she got there. The soft-spoken doctor introduced himself as Baxter. He explained that she’d lost a lot of blood, but they’d given her a small transfusion and she’d bounce back as long as she loaded up on fluids and iron-rich foods. 

“Did you call my husband?” she asked anxiously. 

“We’re having some difficulty getting a hold of him,” he said, rolling his chair to the edge of her bed. “Ellie, I need to know how much you remember about what happened tonight.”

“I don’t remember the ride here,” she admitted, but she was struck by a vivid image of Hardy carrying her into the lift. His face had been streaked with remorse and blood: her blood. “We were trying to arrest a suspect, but he attacked me with a samurai sword and got away.”

“Ellie,” Baxter said with a patient smile, “I wasn’t born yesterday. I treated you for a vampire bite. I need to know who bit you and how it happened.” Ellie stiffened and pressed her lips into a thin line. Baxter sighed. “It won’t leave this room, it’s strictly confidential, but I need to know what happened before I can help you with the trauma.”

“Nige,” Ellie confessed, omitting the whole truth. “He was a fledgling, might’ve been turned a couple of weeks ago. He couldn’t help himself.”

“And what happened to Nige?” Baxter prompted her. 

“We – _I_ took care of him with a stake.”

Baxter leaned closer, his eyes softening along with his features.

“Ellie, DI Hardy brought you in. He told me he stopped Nige, and then he bit you because he was starving and injured. Is that true?”

Nodding, she stared at the IV in her hand. 

“I told him he could feed on me, as long as he didn’t kill or turn me,” she confessed and the doctor’s eyes widened. Ellie plucked at the tape on the back of her hand and traced her vein. “They staked my friend Jack. I didn’t want that to happen to Hardy, and they would have if they’d seen him in that state.”

Baxter made a few more inquiries and Ellie answered honestly for most of them. When Baxter asked her if she wished she could forget that it ever happened, she lied. The moment he took her hand and looked her in the eye, she knew she’d made a grave mistake. 

Baxter’s hand was the same temperature as Hardy on a good day, but his voice had taken on a silky quality that Hardy’s never had, although Ellie had heard rumours about the mythical ability. Even Jack had occasionally switched on the charm whenever a neighbour had noticed him drinking synthetic blood or he’d forgotten a bill was due. Afterwards, they’d remember speaking to Jack, but they’d remember the conversation differently; Liz had seen Jack drinking a Spanish wine, the bill collector had gotten the date wrong. It was one of the reasons why Ellie had never dreamed that Hardy – the least charming man she’d ever met – could have been anything but an irritating human being. 

“You’re a vampire,” she surmised and Baxter nodded. 

She’d witnessed Jack enough times to understand what would happen next; Baxter would rewrite the reality of what had happened in the boatyard, twisting it with her help into something she might’ve put into a report for someone like C.S. Jenkinson.

He couldn’t take away her memories, but he could alter the most recent ones. 

Baxter could make her forget that Hardy was a vampire, that Hardy had saved her from Nige and that he might’ve let a mob finish him off rather than give into his hunger. She could forget that Hardy had drank from her and that he’d held her more tenderly and closely than her husband had in months. He’d caressed her and she’d felt a strange sort of intimacy with him. Ellie was ashamed for even having these disloyal thoughts, it felt like a betrayal to Joe and to her marriage vows. They might be going through a rough patch, but she was _happily_ married, and she wouldn’t think about how when she’d texted Joe _I love you_ earlier, she’d heard an immediate ping in the boat above her that would’ve gotten her killed if Hardy hadn’t yelled her name. Joe couldn’t have been in the boatyard, and she desperately wanted to erase those doubts from her mind, because he couldn’t have killed Danny. Not Joe. 

“Okay,” she agreed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Ellie consented, y'all, let me just make that clear again. In several universes vampires are known to be charming to lure their victims in, but I pushed it a bit to explain how they might've adapted to survive when most humans want them to be extinct. I guess it's like Wizards being able to Obliviate Muggles in the HP series for the safety of both worlds, but not really, it's more complicated and selective, we'll get more info soon. One more chapter and then we're done with Series 1 and off to a very different Series 2! I'm leaning toward keeping it all in one story, but it might get long, so if you want me to break it into two and make a collection I can.**


	6. An Evil that Came out of the Human Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baxter tries to help Ellie cope with the trauma, but rewriting a memory won't change what happened on the night of Danny's death.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I can help you forget,” Baxter offered, “But only if you work with me.”

“You’ll make me forget Hardy,” Ellie predicted. 

“I can’t convince you to do anything you don’t want to do, Ellie,” the vampire murmured. “You’ll still remember him as DI Hardy, but you’ll never have to relive the nightmare of him feeding on you.”

The monitor behind her beeped as her heart rate escalated. She could forget the whole thing ever happened. Hardy would have to leave after this, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to stick around, and Ellie would finally get his job. But after everything she’d learned in the past two months about vampires and people she thought she’d known like the back of her hand; did she really want it?

And what if Joe – Ellie slammed a door on that horrible theory before it could fully formulate, she knew her husband wasn’t capable of murder, but Hardy’s voice echoed through her mind and Ellie hated the detective she was becoming. 

_Don’t trust_. 

“Just relax,” Baxter said soothingly. “Tell me what your boss is like,” he urged her and she snorted. 

“He’s a knob, but he’s good at his job and I’ve learned a lot from him. Don’t tell him I said that.” She chattered on for a bit, and Baxter redirected her here and there to Hardy’s more human qualities in that weird hypnotic voice, but she only got more nervous and tired as they went on. 

Baxter made subtle but believable suggestions that Nige might’ve been under the influence of LSD, not a fledgling, and Hardy had collapsed from a heart attack in the boatyard, after he’d killed Nige in self-defence. At first Ellie didn’t understand why he kept arguing with her, when they both knew what had happened, but later she found it more and more difficult to recall the events. Her memories were fuzzy and all she wanted was for Baxter to go away and let her rest. 

“Now, tell me what you remember from earlier,” the doctor said at last, looking more worn than he had earlier. 

Ellie had talked a lot, but she couldn’t remember why she’d told him so much about Hardy or even why she was in the hospital. But something had happened to Hardy - something bad - but why couldn’t she remember?

“Where’s Hardy?”

“Hardy had a heart attack, remember?” Baxter queried, frowning at her. “He’s being treated for an arrhythmia that will require a pacemaker in the future, but he should make a full recovery.” Ellie’s confusion must’ve been evident, because the doctor explained, “You were brought in together. Your friend Nige attacked you and Hardy intervened. He saved your life.”

The heart arrhythmia would certainly explain why DI Hardy had nearly fainted after Danny’s memorial service. SOCO Brian had dubbed him _Shitface_ because Hardy had been so pale and shaky these past few days. 

Ellie could almost imagine it, Hardy gasping on the ground as he clutched at his chest, and her telling him not to fucking die on her. Nige was dead with his head twisted at an odd angle, but she recalled the crazed gleam in his eyes as if he’d overdosed on a drug she’d never encountered, and the blood, there’d been so much blood… 

“You hit your head, Ellie, it’ll come back to you.”

Ellie glanced down at the IV in her vein and noticed that two of her fingertips were stained a coppery brown. Suddenly, she was struck by the image of Hardy cradling her in the lift with his face streaked with remorse and blood: her blood. Except this time, she recalled him apologizing and his voice cracking. Abruptly, she was back in the boatyard with her hand fisted in Hardy’s hair as he dipped down and-

Ellie blinked as it all came back to her more vividly than before. The vampire noticed the change in her expression and narrowed his eyes. 

“How much do you remember?”

“Everything,” she admitted and his shoulders sagged. 

“I can’t make you forget anything unless you _want_ to forget,” he reminded her. “But I don’t think I need to explain to you why it’s crucial that you don’t tell anyone about Hardy or what happened tonight.”

“Is that why Joe’s not here?” she wondered, touching the plaster on her neck. “You needed to ensure my silence before you could bring him in. I won’t tell anyone, not even Joe, I promise,” she vowed. “I don’t want anything to happen to Hardy, but I’d like to see my husband now.”

“Hardy went to get him,” Baxter assured her, frowning at his phone, “They should be back soon.” He patted Ellie’s hand and stood, giving the monitors a onceover. Pausing at the foot of her bed, he scrutinized her one last time. 

“I’m sorry about earlier, it’s nothing personal, but it’s the standard protocol in situations like this one to protect all those involved and to ensure your full recovery from the trauma,” he apologized, before adding, “If it makes you feel any better, DI Hardy was adamant that you had to be fully informed and consensual.”

Ellie breathed a sigh of relief once he’d gone and let her heavy eyelids droop for a few minutes. 

When she opened them again, it was dawn and there was a different doctor in the room. A human one judging from the agitated way he was scratching at his arm. 

“Is my husband here?” she asked anxiously. 

“Not yet,” the doctor told her, warily eyeing the door and scratching harder. “The – er – gentleman that brought you into the hospital wishes to speak to you.”

“He’s here?” Ellie stammered and covered the plaster on her throat. 

“We can get security,” he offered, fidgeting. She convulsively clutched at the bedsheet, hyper-aware of her vulnerable position, but steeled herself to face the vampire who’d fed on her. 

“No, that won’t be necessary. Let him in,” she heard herself say. The door opened and Hardy stepped into the room. 

“Are you done with her yet?” he barked at the doctor.

“Hardy!” she admonished him, “That was rude, tell the doctor you’re sorry.” Hardy glared at the poor man. 

“Sorry,” he grunted. 

The doctor scuttled out, yanking the door shut behind him. As soon as the doctor left them alone together, Hardy’s posture changed. His shoulders slumped, his head dropped, and his hands unclenched at his sides.

“You alright?” she asked, sitting up.

“Am _I_ alright?” he sputtered and scraped a hand over his face. “Aye, just bit my partner and nearly sucked her dry, but I feel _fantastic_ ,” he spat. 

“Well, I feel like shit,” she griped, slouching against the uncomfortably flat pillow. “We didn’t even get Danny’s killer.”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Hardy said ominously. His eyes were bloodshot and his face was abnormally flushed, but it was the clench of his jaw that worried Ellie. 

“You know who it is,” she realized. She threw off the bedsheet. “Let’s go arrest him.”

Ellie’s bare feet hadn’t even hit the tiles when Hardy scooped her up in his arms like she weighed nothing at all. He held her for a moment and she remembered the feel of him twined around her last night under the dry dock. Hardy stiffened as if he recollected it too. 

“You need to stay here,” he said and deposited her back in bed. 

“I need to finish this,” she argued, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“You’ve done enough,” he told her, his eyes sparking with something lethal. That spark troubled her more than the feverish hunger she’d seen in his eyes last night. 

“Who is it?” she demanded. “Oh, god,” she whispered, pressing a trembling hand to her lips, “It’s someone I know.”

Hardy looked away as if he was trying to spare her the pain that would inevitably accompany the dreaded truth. 

“When did you figure it out?” 

“Last night when I brought you here,” he admitted, perching next to her with his fingers laced over one knee. His thirst had been sated by her blood, but she was more terrified of the pity in his eyes.

“I need to ask you a few questions, it’s standard procedure,” he said. 

“ _No_. I’m not letting you rewrite my memories. I don’t want to forget,” she started to argue, but he cut her off with an odd look. 

“If Baxter couldn’t do it, then you’re stuck with them,” he said gruffly, but there was a flicker of something akin to relief in his eyes before the discomfiting softness resurfaced. “Are you able to answer a few questions for me?”

Ellie settled, assuming this had something to do with the chase through the dry docks. But Hardy took out his notepad and asked her to recount where she’d been on the night of Danny’s death. 

“And did you hear Joe come to bed?” Hardy inquired. His face was a blank slate as he held his pen poised over the paper. 

“No.” Ellie realized that she didn’t know, she’d taken those sleeping pills to help with the jet lag. Something niggled at the back of her mind and she felt a stabbing panic. When she’d messaged Joe in the boatyard, she’d heard an answering ping, but that wasn’t possible. Joe had been at home with the boys, both nights.

“Where’s my phone?” she demanded, searching for her belongings. “I want to call my husband.”

“Ellie.” Hardy clasped her elbow; his fingers cool against her bare skin. 

“ _Don’t_. Don’t you dare _Ellie_ me.” Shuddering, she jerked away from him and he recoiled. 

“He’s outside,” Hardy said stiffly, tucking the notepad back into this coat. 

“I want to see him,” she insisted. Hardy hesitated and then stood up. Ellie shivered, wondering why she felt chillier as he moved away from her. Hardy’s hand was on the doorknob, when he glanced back at her over his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” he apologized again and it sounded like a death knell.

Ellie sat in the thin hospital gown with her arms wrapped around herself, trying to get warm, but the shivering got worse as her husband of almost fourteen years stepped into the room. 

“Ellie!” Joe was so pale and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Hardy hovered in the doorway and Joe nervously glanced back at him. 

“Leave us,” Ellie said. 

Hardy growled something low enough for only Joe’s ears, before reluctantly retreating. Joe went a few shades paler as he tripped toward her. 

“He’s a vampire, El,” Joe blurted, his eyes wild with fear, “Get your things and let’s go.” He seized the bag of her belongings and stretched out a quaking hand to her. “If we leave now, we can grab the boys and go straight to the airport. I’ve already got our bags packed and our passports, we can be in Florida by morning.”

“C’mon, El,” Joe pleaded with her, but Ellie was staring at his throat. There was a handprint-shaped bruise starting to purple around the fingerprints, as if someone had grabbed him and tried to throttle him, one-handed. She felt sick to her stomach. 

“What happened there?” Ellie inquired, but she already knew. Joe touched his throat and winced.

“That fucking _blood-sucker_ ,” Joe swore, “He called your sister, El, and then he stopped me from coming to see you.” Ellie’s heart stopped as a terrifying realization hit her, because if Joe had been in the boatyard last night, then he hadn’t been at home…

“Where are Tom and Fred?” she demanded, panicking.

“The vampire frightened Lucy into taking them to a hotel,” Joe griped, but Ellie knew Luce didn’t give a damn if Hardy had fangs as long as he had a couple of hundred quid. Doctor Baxter wouldn’t have needed anything more than a couple of bills to make Lucy forget she’d ever been born. 

“They’re safe,” Ellie breathed, relaxing.

“El, we don’t have much time,” he persisted, grabbing her arm, “He’ll be back any second.”

Ellie pulled away from him.

“What were you doing in the boatyard last night?” she interrogated him.

“I went for a walk,” he stammered, “And then I heard - I heard you, so I followed you, but then I heard _them_ and I - I - I hid in a boat.” 

“You heard me crying for help and you hid,” Ellie surmised and her heart cracked.

“I knew you and I wouldn’t stand a chance against those beasts,” Joe went on with crocodile tears welling up in his eyes. “I didn’t want the boys to be orphaned.” His eyes darted to the plaster on her throat and his fists clenched at his sides. 

“Hardy saved my life, he didn’t kill me,” Ellie pointed out, feeling as if she wasn’t fully present in the room. Joe’s face changed, his anger carving up his features into a face she didn’t recognize. 

“I didn’t know you were helping them,” he sneered, “If I’d known you were a _sympathizer_ and you would endanger your own children, I never would’ve-” He broke off, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. His gaze flicked to the door. “Never mind, let’s go.”

But Ellie wasn’t going anywhere.

“You had Danny’s smartphone last night.”

“I found it,” Joe lied. “Jack must’ve dropped it after he killed Danny.”

“Jack didn’t kill Danny, Joe,” she argued.

“Of course, he did.” Joe’s anger kept flaring up, his fists clenching and unclenching no matter how many deep breaths he took. “He’s a monster, El, they’re all monsters, but you can’t see it because you’ve got blinders on. You’re forgetting who the real enemy is here.”

“You’re right,” Ellie said, staring at him. Over Joe’s right shoulder she could see Hardy hovering protectively outside the door, but Ellie wasn’t afraid of him. Hardy wasn’t the enemy. Hardy hadn’t killed an eleven-year-old and framed an innocent man for it. 

“Did you kill Danny, Joe?” she asked. 

“No.” But Ellie had been married to Joe long enough to know when he was lying, or at least she’d thought she’d known, but since she’d gotten pregnant with Fred, Joe had learned to skilfully lie by omission. Her head spun as the truth finally sank in; she was married to a murderer.

“How could you kill an eleven-year-old?” she whispered with mounting horror. 

“I didn’t,” Joe lied again, his eyes darting to where Hardy was looming outside and back again to her. “I didn’t.” But a mix of fear and guilt finally ate away at the man she didn’t recognize anymore, and the truth spilled out. “It - it was an accident,” he blurted. The crack in Ellie’s heart widened, stretching painfully. Joe reached out for her, desperate and afraid. He held her hands in his, hard enough to bruise them. 

“El, I didn’t mean to do it. I’ll explain everything, I promise, just tell the blood-sucker to leave.” He squeezed her hands harder and she tried to wrench them away from him. 

“We’ve both made mistakes, El,” he said with a pained smile, as the bile rushed up in her throat, “But I’m willing to forgive you for being a sympathizer, if you just tell that _thing_ outside to let us go. It’ll listen to you. Then we can get away from here. We can forget about Danny and that this ever happened.”

Ellie drove her knee up into his groin and he let go of her hands. 

“He was _eleven_!” she yelled at him as her anger, grief and disgust rushed through her like a tsunami surging toward the shore. 

Ellie slapped him and Joe spat something about her love for vampires being worse. She shoved him into one of the monitors and he tripped over something, falling onto his backside. Blinded by her rage, she hit him and kicked him over and over again, until he cried for help.

Strong arms grabbed her from behind and pulled her off of her husband. Ellie was dimly aware that there was a security guard and a police officer attending to Joe, snapping the handcuffs on him and reading him his rights. Ellie fought against Hardy, but he held her closer until the anger rushed out of her as quickly as it had crashed over her. She went limp in his arms and he sat with her as a nurse patched up her pulled IV. The staff were irritated and frightened by Hardy’s presence, but Ellie’s vital signs were already stabilizing again even as she wept. Hardy clumsily patted her shoulder and pet her hair, but when she curled into him, he held her until everyone had left and she’d cried herself out.

“How did you know?” she asked as he moved to the chair at her bedside.

Hardy explained how the Reverend had found Tom’s computer after they’d learned of her son’s falling out with Danny. With the help of an expert, he was able to pull the messages from Tom’s hard drive and trace the only other number on Danny’s smartphone to Joe. Joe fit the same description as Nige, which explained why Lucy and Susan both thought they’d seen him disposing of evidence and leaving Danny’s body on the beach. 

“But what happened?”

Hardy hesitantly revealed that Danny and Joe had been meeting in secret for months, apparently Joe had thought he was in love. He’d killed Danny because the boy had threatened to tell someone about their forbidden relationship. 

Ellie threw up into the bedpan. She’d seen the M.E. report and there’d been no signs of sexual assault, but Joe had been grooming him. 

With his heightened senses, Hardy had smelled Joe all over the hut and Danny’s body, but it wasn’t until Joe had hid in the boat and Hardy had drank from Ellie that he’d recognized the same scent on her. Ellie’s moment of hesitation in the boatyard had not gone unnoticed; Hardy shamefully admitted that he’d checked her phone and Joe’s to confirm the text exchange and to cement the fact that Joe had been present at the dry docks when Danny’s smartphone switched back on there. Joe had been keeping the smartphone as a keepsake, hiding it inside a cigar box next to their bed until last night when he’d tried to dispose of the evidence and couldn’t bring himself to part with it. 

“And he confessed, when you asked him why he had it?” Even though Ellie had heard Joe’s confession from his own lips, she didn’t want to believe it.

“I told him I could smell a lie,” Hardy growled, unmasking the predator within. Ellie had never thought of Joe as a coward until they’d rowed about Jack. Strong prejudices were often rooted in irrational fears, and Hardy had clearly wielded this philosophy to his advantage. “He was so eager to tell me the truth, I couldn’t shut him up,” he recalled bitterly. Hardy had definitely threatened Joe, Ellie wasn’t sure how he’d managed to stop himself from killing him with his bare hands. 

“But how do the fledglings play into all of this?” she wondered, trying not to think about how she wouldn’t have minded if Hardy had given Joe a taste of his own medicine.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, shrugging his shoulders. “Nige must’ve been sired when he went missing, and we know Susan was trying to locate him. If she found him and he upset him, he couldn’t have stopped himself even if he’d wanted to,” he speculated. 

“There’s probably more out there,” she realized, shivering. “Plus, whoever’s been siring them.” 

“I’ll find them,” Hardy vowed and his eyes blazed with an inhuman fire.

“That’s what worries me,” Ellie said, closing her tired eyes. “You weren’t taking care of yourself and you _barely_ survived a fight with Nige.”

“Don’t worry about me, Millah,” he grunted. She’d started to doze, when Hardy left the chair to lean over her. He ghosted a fingertip over the plaster on her neck, so lightly she hardly felt it. 

“You should be more worried about yourself,” he whispered. Something brushed her brow, cool and ephemeral as a snowflake.

Ellie opened her eyes, but Hardy was already gone. 

*

When Ellie woke in the morning, she found Hardy at her bedside, waiting impatiently for the doctor to discharge her into his care. Once they did, he drove her straight to the hotel where her sister, Olly and her sons were already staying. 

“Don’t let anyone else in under any circumstance,” Hardy instructed Ellie before he left her. 

Ellie listened to Hardy, but that didn’t stop _her_ from leaving. She walked the moonlit paths along the cliffs and hovered outside of the Latimer’s until Beth came outside. A few nights later, she took another midnight stroll to Hardy’s hotel room at the Traders. Hardy was furious that she was walking around alone at night, and upset that Ellie agreed with Beth that she was partially to blame. Ellie had been suspended with pay, but she didn’t need Hardy to confirm that most people thought she was guilty of covering for Joe. 

“I should’ve seen it.”

“How?” Hardy posed a question that Ellie would undoubtedly ask herself over and over again in the coming weeks and months. There had to have been something she’d missed, some way she could’ve stopped Joe from killing Danny. “Miller,” he sighed, “You can’t blame yourself.”

Ellie sniffled and curled up in the chair at the foot of his hotel bed. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed. 

“People are unknowable,” Hardy whispered to her, “You can never really know what goes on inside someone else’s heart.” 

“At least you can hear their heartbeat,” she scoffed, “Some detective I am, I didn’t even realize what you were.”

“You would’ve,” he murmured.

“Not if Doctor Baxter had taken away my memory of the other night,” she confessed. “He tried to tell me you had a heart attack.”

“I did,” Hardy said, startling her. “When I was still…” He made a vague motion with his hand and rubbed at his sternum as if it had once been a habit. “Miller, are you sure you’re alright with all this?” She thought of Joe, the man who had shared her bed for the last fourteen years, doing god only knew what with a child.

“Could you do it?” she blurted and Hardy froze. “Could you make me forget what Joe did to Danny?” she asked weakly and he studied her closely. 

“Softening the trauma won’t change the truth,” he pointed out and Ellie felt another part of her heart that had belonged to Joe turning to ash. “Even if I could, Miller, it wouldn’t take away the pain.”

“What about you?” she wondered, changing the subject. “Do they know what really happened in the dry docks?”

Hardy shook his head. 

“I sent Jocelyn an accurate report that she’ll pass on and file with the proper authorities, but you know Jenkinson doesn’t want to hear it,” he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “As far as Wessex County is concerned, Nige was on LSD when he attacked you, and I killed him in self-defence.”

Ellie nodded, she’d been expecting something to that degree, but it didn’t make her feel any better. 

“Jenkinson asked me to resign,” he added, and Ellie had expected that too. 

“Where will you go?” she wondered.

“Not far,” Hardy assured her, loosening the knot in his tie. “I think there’s another fledgling in the area I can flush out, but whoever sired them is getting better at covering their tracks.” He yanked his tie off and tossed it onto the bed. 

“Be careful, Hardy,” she cautioned him and he leaned toward her with his elbows on his knees. 

“Don’t worry about me,” he said softly, staring at her with unblinking eyes that unsettled her, “Worry about yourself.”

Ellie swallowed and lifted a hand to the scar he’d left on her neck.

“I’m not going to turn, am I?” she worried again.

“God, no,” Hardy snorted. “You would’ve noticed by now.” Ellie relaxed as he seemed to shift from predator to human with one blink of his eyes. 

“Where will you go?” he wondered, turning the question on her. 

“Dunno,” she confessed. “I want to give the boys a fresh start.”

“Don’t go too far,” Hardy warned her. Ellie might’ve bristled, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he suddenly looked very tired. He scrubbed a hand over his face and rolled up his sleeves. “I don’t know what we’re dealing with,” he admitted, his brows pulling together with concern. 

“You’ll keep me posted,” she said.

Hardy nodded and scooted closer to where she sat in the chair. He stretched out a cool hand and squeezed her knee. It was a strange cold comfort. The gesture and the reminder of how much had changed in the last week brought fresh tears to her eyes. 

“Look at us,” she sniffled, “Former detectives club.”

Hardy rubbed his thumb over her kneecap. There was regret and guilt weighing down his voice when he spoke. 

“For what it’s worth, Miller, I really wanted to be wrong about Joe.”

“Me too,” she whispered as another tear seared her cheek. 

Ellie stood up and his hand fell from her knee. He didn’t move, but his eyes slid shut as she gripped his shoulder.

“Goodbye, Hardy,” she whispered and impulsively dropped a kiss in his hair. It was the closest she could manage to a thank you for stopping Nige and himself from killing her. Ellie breathed in the attractive scent that Hardy cloaked in clean laundry and something minty, and then she pulled away.

Hardy appeared tensed and ready to spring, but he kept his eyes closed as she left his hotel room. 

He didn’t try to stop her, but Ellie knew he’d be able to find her no matter where she went. 

*

CCTV in the boatyard hadn’t been able to pick up anything useful other than a few blurry images of Joe running away to hide, putting him at the scene, and then Nige attacking Miller. Hardy had knocked him out of the frame, but the timestamps confirmed just how close he’d come to losing Miller. Hardy was relieved that one of the worst moments of his existence hadn’t been recorded, thanks to the cheap miser who owned the boatyard and had installed more fake cameras than real ones. 

Baxter left for his new assignment on another continent, but not before advising Hardy again to leave Miller alone. Hardy had assumed and privately hoped that Miller with her knowledge of vampires and their abilities had refused to have her traumatic memories taken care of, even though Golden Age studies had proven that it helped trauma victims in the long-run, if after talking it through, the memories could be softened or made more palatable. But Baxter told him Ellie had consented, it just hadn’t worked. 

“I’ve never failed.” Baxter sounded annoyed, but Hardy was relieved that Miller had been allowed to keep her memories. 

“You did fail,” Hardy reminded him, almost smiling at the memory, “Once.”

“Good thing too, I would’ve made a mess of things if you and Alistair Murray hadn’t talked Jocelyn into letting me into her facility,” Baxter recalled, shaking his head. “Perhaps she’s immune to our charms like you were, Murray always said that’s why he chose you as his Wraith.”

Hardy’s jaw clenched at the mention of his ex-partner. 

“Have you heard from him at all?” Baxter wondered and Hardy shook his head. “You will,” he warned Hardy. “You know this borders his old territory.”

“He’s been gone for decades, Baxter, someone else had to have taken over. He’s not coming back,” Hardy snapped, because after being partners for almost twenty years, Murray had let him down the one time he’d desperately needed his help. 

And now Hardy had forever to think about how it all went so wrong in Sandbrook. 

“You know Hardy, there’s another reason why I might not have been able to touch Ellie’s memories…” Baxter began and Hardy blanched. “You haven’t…?”

“ _No_ ,” Hardy said vehemently. Baxter studied him as if he were a patient with an untreatable and inexplicable illness. 

“Don’t do it,” Baxter warned him, “She’ll never forgive you.”

Hardy didn’t need Baxter to tell him this, no one understood remorse better than Hardy; he’d been reborn and baptised by the flames of guilt, shackled to an eternity to atone for his sins. 

*

After Danny’s funeral, Hardy went to the beach and sat in the shadow of the cliff. He’d been here once, ages ago when he’d still been a boy, he’d forgotten. Hardy wondered what else he’d forgotten and what he’d forget in the decades and centuries yet to come. 

Hardy didn’t think he’d ever forget his Mum’s last words to him or the weight of Pippa’s water-logged body in his arms. He’d never forget Daisy dancing on his toes at her cousin’s wedding and already daydreaming about her own. He couldn’t forget the hatred in Tess’s eyes the last time he’d seen her, or the way Miller had turned to him for comfort, warming him for the first time in decades. 

He sat out there all afternoon and evening, unbothered by the cold stinging wind. From a distance, he watched the bonfires light up on the cliffs one by one in honour of Danny and wished Miller could’ve witnessed it too, wrapped up in her ridiculous orange jacket. He thought that Daisy might’ve liked the idea of the bonfires too. Maybe. Hardy wasn’t sure anymore and that terrified him.

Baxter had said that Hardy had been immune to the vampire charm, but Hardy had always had a nasty habit of clinging to the bad memories and letting the tide of time wash away the good ones. The habit had only gotten worse when he’d been turned and his worst memories lived in his chest like a festering wound where his heart should’ve been. 

His phone rang and he picked it up. 

“Freddy. NO! That’s not a toy. Hardy? Sorry, he tried to stick the phone into his mouth and it rang you for some reason. Bloody touch screens.” Hardy listened as she rambled on about something else the baby had done involving Legos. Fred babbled and whimpered in the background. Miller put the phone down to soothe the baby instead of hanging up and his heart ached as he overheard them. His memories might be faded and altered by time, but he could still remember getting up with a colicky infant, begging and pleading with her to let him sleep some nights. But there were other nights when he’d stayed up just to watch her breathe; he swore his heart had stopped every time she’d opened her blue eyes and given him a gummy smile. 

Baxter was right, he should leave. Broadchurch was no place for a vampire, not out in the open. Not anymore. Jack’s death and most of Hardy’s career had proven that over and over again. The Golden Age had ended. 

“You still there?” Miller asked suddenly and the knot in Hardy’s chest tightened painfully. 

“Aye,” he cleared his throat. “Still here.”

But Hardy knew their ‘Wild’ vampire wasn’t in Broadchurch anymore, he didn’t know how much longer he could justify staying close to Ellie Miller. Jocelyn was starting to get suspicious; if Hardy didn’t find out who was siring the fledglings soon, the Institute would yank him back.

Hardy feared he already knew who was responsible for the fledglings; the same pair that was ultimately to blame for his re-birth and the eternity he would spend punishing himself. 

And if that was the case, and they caught him sniffing around, Hardy didn’t want to think about how they’d make him suffer this time. 

*

The days turned into weeks and then months, but Ellie didn’t see Hardy again. They kept in close contact, texting and even calling each other at least once a week to ensure that the other was kept abreast of Joe’s case and the search for Nige’s troublesome sire. Ellie understood that Hardy was busy as the calls and texts became more sporadic, but she was lonely. Almost all of her friends and neighbours had turned their back on her. Even her own son was convinced that his father was innocent and he didn’t want to live with someone who believed Joe was guilty. 

Once her suspension was up, Ellie quit and got a job as a traffic cop in Devon. The flat was small and shabby, but furnished and heated. She was able to move in right away with Fred. The landlord had it scrubbed clean by a professional; Ellie should’ve been grateful but the sterility made her cry. She’d brought so few things with her, it was only supposed to be temporary, at least until Tom came to his senses. Fred was walking and would start strewing his toys around soon, but that night Ellie felt like she was back in that hotel room, still struggling to come to grips with what had happened in her own home. 

Around midnight, Ellie fell asleep on the sofa, but she woke tucked into her bed with a steaming paper cup on the nightstand and a velvet black box. Ellie leapt to her feet and ran into the nursery, but Fred was still sleeping undisturbed and there was no sign of a forced entry. 

Ellie waited until hours later to examine the velvet box, after she’d put Fred down for his afternoon kip and had a chance to sit down again. It was obviously jewellery, but Ellie was more content with the coffee. She thought it was a bit weird, if her hunch was right about the gift-giver, but she opened it anyway. 

Inside was a necklace. Ellie lifted the silver chain and found the St. Mark’s medal she’d lost right before Jack’s death that he’d given her on her thirteenth birthday. Hardy had added a beautiful and obviously blessed Celtic cross to the necklace as well. Ellie curled her fingers around it, remembering how he’d mentioned once that his Mum had been Irish when she’d teased him about hating fish and chips. For a moment, Ellie could almost imagine that she could feel the faith that someone had instilled in the cross and she wondered if this had belonged to Hardy’s mother. 

There was a note too, tucked into the top of the box. 

_Just in case_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of part 1. I'll probably keep the story all together, but the Sandbrook remix was already twice as long as my vampire take on Season 1 before I even started the editing, so if you'd prefer I break it up here, lemme know. It might be a week or two before I update, because of RL stuff. Thank you for reading y'all!!! I've enjoyed your comments and theories!!! :)


	7. A Drink called Loneliness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy's haunted by his past. Ellie can't cope with the present. Mistakes are made.

Whenever Hardy dreamed about that night, it always began and ended with silence. 

And snow. 

Time seemed to have stopped that night, freezing and blanketing everything in a layer of lethal white glitter. 

Hardy had a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel as he navigated the slippery roads and crossed the icy bridge with a growing sense of dread. He’d passed two accidents and had narrowly avoided spinning out on a patch of black ice. 

By the time he reached home, Hardy could barely feel his fingers, but the ice in his veins turned to fire at the sight of an unfamiliar car in his drive. 

Hardy had been certain that it was _him_ ; the wealthy neurosurgeon who had claimed Tess’s heart well before she’d met Hardy. Hardy couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept with his own wife, but since Pippa and Lisa’s photographs had landed on his desk, he’d barely even seen her. Now that Daisy was older and Tess was up for another promotion, she practically lived at Royal Mercia Hospital, and Hardy hadn’t thought anything of it. 

Until now. 

Hardy had suffered through the twelve stages of grief over the course of his corroding marriage, but that night anger was what flared to life. Opening the boot, he rummaged for what was left of his pride. Hardy didn’t intend to actually use the shotgun, but after seventeen years of living in some other man’s shadow, he was bloody sick and tired of it. He had to draw the line somewhere; Hardy refused to let them shag in his bed under the same roof as his daughter.

Hardy crept up the drive and slipped in through the unlocked front door. He was so upset and intent on catching them both in flagrante delicto, he didn’t notice that the deadbolt was broken. 

The pool of blood was a lot harder to miss. 

A guttural growl reverberated through the foyer. 

Hardy’s brain barely had time to catch up as decades of training jumpstarted his muscle memory. He’d fired on the fanged vampire with the Mossberg VP 500 before he’d fully registered what was happening. 

“Don’t shoot!” the vampire cried out and collapsed at his feet. “Please,” he wailed, writhing in pain. “Don’t kill me, please, I’ll do anything.”

“Roche?” Hardy was horrified that he recognized the injured vampire. The former Vampirologist had been one of Hardy’s last assignments with his former partner. They’d disagreed on how to handle the struggling vampire, but when Roche had appealed to Hardy for his life, he’d let Roche go against Murray’s orders. 

“How did you find me?” Hardy was stunned. Wraith’s identities were the Institute’s most closely guarded secrets. So few Wraiths had families and even fewer lived to see early retirement. If Hardy hadn’t been paired up with Murray, he would’ve been dead like the others. 

“Hardy?” Roche blinked and gaped at him. “What are you doing here?” Roche had once been a genius, but he’d never had any common sense. Out of all the vampires Hardy had encountered, Roche had been at the very bottom of the list of his potential threats. 

“This is _my_ house,” Hardy stated and the vampire’s bloodshot eyes widened. Belatedly, he realized that Roche’s mouth was smeared red, but because it was _Roche_ , Hardy’s instincts were lagging.

“Hardy,” Roche said, licking the blood from his stained lips, “I didn’t know she was yours – I swear – If I’d known-” He touched Hardy’s arm, snapping him out of shell-shock. 

Hardy rammed the smoking muzzle of the shotgun into the wound from the consecrated silver bullet. Roche howled in pain. Hardy swiftly jammed the gun between Roche’s teeth to silence and neutralize him. 

“You killed my wife?” Hardy snarled.

Roche’s eyes widened. The vampire shook his head as bloody tears streamed down his cheeks. 

Something thumped upstairs. 

Hardy shoved the gun into the back of Roche’s throat, ignoring the vampire’s muffled scream. Hardy’s mind was whirling and his heart was threatening to give out on him. Daisy was staying at a friend’s this weekend, Hardy was _almost_ positive, but his panic was rising fast and furiously. 

“If you touched a hair on her head, I will make you wish you were never reborn,” Hardy whispered, slowly removing the gun.

“I didn’t,” Roche whimpered, squirming. “Hardy, please, let me explain-”

A crash and a bang issued from up above them. 

Hardy abandoned the injured vampire, taking the stairs two at a time. Kicking open the door to Daisy’s bedroom, he exhaled when he found the room empty. No blood. No signs of a struggle. Bracing himself, he backed into the hall and flung open the door to the Master bedroom. 

The window pane was shattered and both lamps had been thrown and broken. There was a jewellery box of holy objects overturned and scattered around the room. Hardy felt a surge of pride and a rush of love for the brave brilliant woman he still venerated in spite of everything she’d put him through; Tess hadn’t gone down without a fight. 

The lacy curtains were streaked with blood and blowing in the wind. Glass littered the blood-stained carpet. 

Hardy crouched down to scrape up some of the congealed blood with his fingernail. It was still fresh, but Tess wasn’t here. 

What had they done with her?

Cowardly Roche couldn’t have done this, not on his own.

Hardy stepped toward the window and froze. A nauseating wave of dizziness swept over him. There was a Celtic Cross hanging from the latch on the window, swinging amongst the swirling snow. The Cross had belonged to his Mum and Hardy had instructed Daisy - not Tess - to _never_ take it off. 

Hardy captured the sanctified silver and the broken chain escaped through his fingers like sand spilling over in an hourglass. 

His heart stopped.

Tonight, time froze here, icing the tragic scene over along with Hardy’s human heart. The silence had taken on a tangible form, settling on his shoulders like a glittering mantle of lethal white frost. 

And yet the snow kept falling, piling up around him…

*

Hardy woke with the first whisperings of winter. Tiny flurries drifted down around him, but they melted upon contact. The cold didn’t bother him anymore, but wet clothing weighing him down and chafing against his skin most certainly did. Retrieving the tarp that had blown off of him, he sat up against the crumbling stone hearth of an abandoned home. 

He’d spent the last three months tracking a fledgling that had defied all of his expectations. Hardy suspected Nige had been sired by someone else, because whoever had sired this particular fledgling hadn’t abandoned them and was taking very good care of them. After Hardy had widened his net to include other counties, he’d realized that there had been a human bled dry every three weeks since last February. Oddly, he got the distinct impression from the reports of law enforcement and comments made by neighbours, that these men and women had been carefully chosen because no one would care if they died. They all had criminal records; some of them had been abusive to their spouses or had been known to traffic child pornography, one had even raped his own stepdaughter.

Hardy had stalked Gloria and Chauncey, but they didn’t seem the vigilante type, although he was willing to wager that one of them had come into contact with his ‘Wild’. Hardy had his money on Gloria, since he suspected his ‘Wild’ was a young woman. Every abandoned nest he’d stumbled upon reeked of heady perfume and vampire pheromones. Most vampires sired surrogate adult ‘children’, but this female was desperately hoping to groom her fledgling into a Mate. 

With human-vampire relationships practically forbidden and so few vampires living freely in the U.K., Hardy felt a stab of sympathy for her and hoped that he would be able to bring them into a facility for rehabilitation. 

His mobile buzzed in his pocket and he fished it out. He had a missed call and a text from Miller. 

_You’re invited to Christmas dinner._

In spite of the tacky decorations splashed across every shop and twinkling from every window, Hardy had completely forgotten about the approaching holiday.

He spent the rest of the night typing and deleting his reply. 

The following evening, she rang him while he was standing in a Sainsbury’s trying to remember what a human being ate and drank, as if he hadn’t spent two months watching her spill tea and crumbs all over his office sofa and the floor of the car. 

“What?” he snapped, nerve-wracked by the variety of chocolates that had multiplied since the last time he’d done the shopping. 

He’d have to tackle the packed wine aisle next, and then, bloody hell, what type of flowers said former colleague, not quite a friend, but-I’m-sorry-I-bit-you-and-Merry-Christmas.

“I’ll take that as another no for dinner,” Miller sighed, and Hardy heard the baby coughing in the background. 

Christ. He’d have to get the baby a Christmas present, and the older one too.

“Fred got the stomach bug,” Miller informed him glumly, “Lucy was supposed to bring Tom down for the week, but they don’t want to risk giving it to my Mum who’s been poorly.” Hardy got the sense that this was more of an excuse and that wee Fred was probably already on the mend. 

“How is he?” Hardy inquired and she told him more or less what he’d already surmised. 

Twenty minutes later, Hardy had one of the last wilted flower arrangements under one arm, a bottle of wine under the other, and a container of chicken soup. On his way out, he grabbed a teddy bear and some over-priced chocolates off of a Christmas display and paid before his guilty conscience drove him to purchase anything else. 

The flowers were dead by the time Hardy figured out what to do with them. He’d spent at least two hours circling her building and working up the courage to ring the buzzer for her flat. One of her neighbours got so tired of him hovering outside that they let him into the building. Hardy dumped everything at her door and let her know via text that he’d left something. 

Miller didn’t call him until later, after she’d retrieved and cracked open the bottle of Merlot, judging from the slight slur to some of her words. 

“What kind of dinners did you attend?” she teased him. 

“I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to get, so I got them all,” he admitted, shrugging. 

“How long’s it been?” she asked.

Hardy stopped walking and gazed up at her building, searching for her window.

“Since you’ve been… you know… human?” she wondered, tripping over her words as they veered closer to the things Hardy would rather not discuss. Especially not on Christmas Eve. 

“You’re not as old as Jack,” she theorized and he heard her pouring herself another glass of wine. “You would’ve been wiped out in the 17th century vampire hunts if anyone saw you on a boat.” 

“There were other ways to travel,” he argued, “’sides not everyone’s born with gills like you, Millah.” Hardy was fairly certain he’d found her window, but she wasn’t sitting close enough for him to see her properly. 

“You’re not that old, though,” she surmised. 

“No, ‘m not,” he sighed, running the tip of his thumb over his left ring finger and the scar that had never quite healed. She was merely curious, but he shied away from the personal questions. 

“How’s Frankie?” he queried. 

“Fred,” Miller corrected him. He could practically hear her eyes rolling. “You’ve talked to him and you still can’t remember his name.” Hardy’s lips quirked at the memory of the accidental video call, and Fred poking at the phone with his pudgy fingers.

“He’s asleep, but he’s better now,” she assured him. 

“And you?” It was a polite inquiry, but Hardy felt as if he was breaking one of the Institute’s implicit rules and edging closer to forbidden territory. 

“I’m getting pissed by myself on Christmas Eve,” she pointed out, taking an audible swallow of her wine, “I’m still married to a murderer, my son Tom doesn’t want to see me and the only person that still wants anything to do with me-” She abruptly broke off. “Can you come up here?” she groaned, startling him. He hadn’t realized she’d spotted him. “My nosy neighbour’s halfway out on her fire escape trying to figure out who you’re peeping on.”

“Miller,” he started to protest.

“God’s sake, Hardy, you’ve been circling my building for over three hours, just come inside already.” 

“I’m keeping an eye out for fledglings,” he said gruffly. 

“You’re attracting attention,” she groused, “My neighbour’s three seconds away from calling the police. I’ll buzz you in, c’mon up.” 

Miller rang off, leaving him no choice in the matter. Reluctantly, Hardy entered the building and stomped up the stairs to her flat. 

*

They’d exchanged texts and phone calls, but Ellie hadn’t seen Hardy since that night she’d gone to see him at the Traders. The bite on her neck had been red and raw then, and the back-stabbing knife wound from Joe’s betrayal had still been fresh. The wounds hadn’t healed, but they weren’t as noticeable to the naked eye. Hardy took one look at her and saw everything humans typically missed. Ellie flushed beneath his gaze. She was beginning to regret her decision to invite him up. The flat was so much smaller with him in it. 

“I poured you a glass of wine,” she said, taking another gulp from her own. 

“I can’t drink that,” Hardy reminded her.

“Sorry,” she apologized with a flustered smile as they sat down together on her sofa, “More for me.” She poured his glass in with the remains of her second. Or was it her third? They sat in stilted silence for five agonizing minutes. 

“You’re not hungry or thirsty, are you?” she asked, stumbling over the question as if she hadn’t grown up around a grumpy vampire. 

“’m fine,” he told her and tugged at his earlobe. “Got something earlier.”

“Are you sure?” she asked, guzzling more wine and struggling to fill the awkwardness, “Don’t want you lunging at me if I move too suddenly. The landlord’ll fine me if I bleed on the upholstery.”

Hardy paled and Ellie regretted the distasteful joke. She reached for an apology, but what came out instead was a strangled sob. 

“Sorry,” she choked out, “I wish both my boys were here,” she confessed. “I can’t stop thinking about last Christmas Eve. The Latimers always had a holiday party, and Jack, Nige, Joe, and I…” She halted and pressed a quaking hand to her mouth. Hardy took her glass of wine and set it on the end table. 

“I miss my family,” she lamented, “And my friends. And my old life.” 

“I know,” Hardy sighed as she collapsed against him in tears. 

“We were happy,” she whispered. 

Hardy sighed again and wrapped an around her. 

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured as she muffled her sobs in his shoulder, “I didn’t want it to be him.” His pity and sympathy made her cry harder. 

Hardy hushed her and patted her on the back as if he were burping an infant, reminding her that Fred was sleeping in the other room. Ellie pulled herself together, snivelling and leaving snot on one of his nicest suit jackets. She wiped it off with her sleeve, embarrassed that this probably wasn’t the first time it had happened. 

“Sorry, ‘m a bit pissed and maudlin, ‘s the first Christmas without them-” She broke off as he cupped her flushed cheek in his refreshingly cool palm. 

“It’s okay to miss them,” he told her and his ancient eyes spoke of losses that reminded her of Jack. 

Ellie wondered how old Hardy was and how many of his loved ones had cut him off or died. But age was only a number; Jack had experienced more in seven years than he had in several lifetimes, and he’d aged hundreds of years over the course of hers. Hell, in the last five months, Ellie’s whole life had changed so much. 

Hardy lowered his hand and his gaze to her shoulder, distracted by the silver chain next to his thumb that disappeared beneath her wool jumper. Ellie reached for the chain and lifted out the St. Mark’s medal and the Celtic Cross. At the sight of the blessed symbols, Hardy let go of her.

“Just in case,” she threw his own words back at him with a wan smile. “Though they don’t seem to be having much of an effect on you,” she noted until he lifted his gaze to hers. The cross had definitely been his Mum’s; his eyes were glistening. 

“Don’t ever take this off,” he instructed her. 

Jack had done the same when he’d given her the medal. But although Jack had given her small tokens of his affection and had allowed her to do the same, Ellie couldn’t remember the last time she’d hugged him or held his hand for any extended period of time. She had blurry memories of him picking her up and guiding her by the hand when she’d been small, but that had been long before he’d gifted her a medal specifically designed to deter his touch. 

“Is this going to irritate you?” she worried. 

“You always irritate me,” he snarked and she swatted his arm. 

“The symbols of faith should act as a deterrent, if the Reverend did his job properly,” he clarified, frowning, “But you have to believe in them too.”

“I’m not sure if I do,” she confessed. Ellie would use rosary beads or a crucifix in a pinch, but she preferred having something more tangible like a stake. 

“St. Mark’s the patron saint of Wraiths,” Hardy informed her. “I don’t think it was a coincidence that Jack placed you in Broadchurch. The building should serve as a sanctuary for anyone seeking protection from a vampire.” 

Ellie vaguely remembered Jack stressing the importance of St. Mark’s Church, but she’d been more interested in the self-defence aspect of her training. 

“What about this?” Ellie held up the Celtic Cross and Hardy actually flinched. 

Ellie was more sceptical of crosses because they’d never had much of an effect on Jack, but the elder vampire had survived so much and had outlived millions of vampires. Hardy had nearly blown his cover because she’d made him get on a boat. He’d _bit_ her because he’d forgotten he was a fucking vampire that needed blood, regularly. 

Suddenly, Hardy snatched up the Celtic Cross and tugged. Ellie jerked back from him, but the chain held until he released the necklace.

“What was that for?” she snapped, but he opened his hand to show her the damage that a couple of seconds in contact with the Celtic Cross had wreaked. There was a blistering imprint in the shape of the cross branded into his palm. 

“Just checking,” he hissed and shook out his hand. “Blimey, that burns.”

“Do you want ice?” 

“No, it’ll heal.” Hardy dismissed the injury, but Ellie started to lift the necklace over her head. “ _No_!” He stopped her with his good hand, lowering her arm. “Don’t take it off.”

“Hardy,” she sighed, “‘m not wearing something that’ll give you a third-degree burn if I forget it’s out and lean over you.”

“It’s protecting you,” Hardy said sharply, but he’d already shifted as far away from her as the small sofa would allow him, so she could retrieve her wineglass from the end table. 

“Don’t be daft, I know you’re not going to attack me.” 

“Don’t be so certain,” Hardy said softly as Ellie deliberately sat closer to him. She brushed up against him and the two of them twined together on the night he’d ‘attacked’ her flashed through her mind. Hardy went rigid as if he’d seen the same memory in his mind’s eye. 

Ellie was lonely and pissed, and well on her way to being properly hammered. 

“Is feeding on someone always like that?” she asked, fuelled by liquid courage and the burning curiosity that had kept her up on her loneliest nights. “Nige hurt me but you… you were gentle…” she stammered, her face flaming from the wine and her humiliation that she’d breached a subject that she never would’ve sober. 

“Nige was a new-born fledgling,” Hardy explained, “He didn’t have any self-control.”

“And I volunteered myself as a blood donor,” Ellie half-laughed, chugging the rest of her wine. “People don’t do that anymore, do they?” 

“No, it was a luxury to have a human donor,” he cleared his throat and avoided her eyes, “But they were always compensated very well for their services.”

“Sort of like a prostitute,” Ellie snorted and she swore Hardy actually blushed. “Is that why you gave me this necklace?” she asked him, fingering the chain.

“No.” He paused and waited for her to look him in the eye. “Miller, no one can remove that necklace except for you. A vampire shouldn’t be able to break that chain or release the clasp.”

Ellie wasn’t so sure about that, but Hardy had given it a good tug that would’ve snapped any of the other necklaces she owned. The necklace wouldn’t serve as anything more than an irritant to a determined vampire, but it was better than nothing. 

“Are you worried that the fledgling might follow me to Devon?” she quipped. After finding out that Joe had staged the killing and not hearing anything more on the fledglings, she now thought the attacks in Broadchurch had been random. 

Ellie couldn’t have been more wrong. 

“I’m… concerned,” Hardy admitted and she lifted her head. 

Hardy stared at her as if he wanted to say so much more, but the words were hiding somewhere in the depths of her soul. Ellie was caught in his stare like a deer in headlights; fascinated, frozen and blinded by the light before the lorry struck. 

“The fledgling I’m tracking, Nige, and your Jane Doe from last year, I don’t think they were all sired by the same vampire,” Hardy revealed and Ellie wished she’d refilled her glass before he brought her up to speed on his investigation. 

“There’s _three_ different 'Wilds' out there, killing people and siring more fledglings?”

“Maybe,” Hardy exhaled heavily and passed a hand over his face. “They won’t stay put long enough for me to get a good look at them and one knows I’m onto them.”

Ellie went into the kitchen and finished off the bottle. When she returned, Hardy was hunched over with his head in his hands. 

“You’ll get them,” she slurred, petting his hair as if he were a puppy. 

Hardy sat up to make room for her, but Ellie’s balance was already off and she forgot how long his legs were. She tripped over his shoe, but he caught her wine glass before she spilled a drop on the landlord’s precious upholstery. 

Ellie went sprawling across the sofa and him. The room spun around her as she pushed up onto her knees and shook her curls out of her eyes. She wobbled and his hand grasped her arm before she toppled off the sofa. He hauled her up next to him and she fell against his solid chest. 

“You okay?” he asked.

Ellie nodded and closed her eyes. Only a few months had passed since her life spiralled out of her control; but she felt as if it had been years since she’d been this close to anyone other than Fred. It was more intoxicating than the Merlot. 

“Millah?” Hardy’s voice sounded strained. 

She tipped her head to look at him. His arms were now spread across the back of the sofa and he was staring up at the ceiling. His jaw worked for a moment and then he sighed. 

“D’you mind…?” Hardy trailed off, gesturing to the empty cushion beside her. “You’re gonna burn a hole in my shirt.”

Ellie glanced down at where the St. Mark’s medal and the Celtic Cross had gotten trapped between them. He wasn’t wearing a tie and his suit jacket was open, leaving only his snug Oxford shirt as poor protection against the sacred object. 

“Oh, right.” Ellie sheepishly tucked the necklace under her thick wool jumper. Hardy relaxed until she curled up against him. She was close enough to feel his muscles clenching and locking up under her, but she was too pissed and too touch-starved to care about his discomfort. 

“I can take it off,” she offered around a yawn. 

“Don’t do that,” Hardy said. His right arm slid a little lower, almost touching her shoulder. “Aren’t you cold?” He plucked some lint from her sleeve. 

“Not anymore,” she mumbled, snuggling closer.

“You’ve had too much to drink,” he sighed.

Ellie had started to doze off when Hardy’s arm finally dropped around her. 

“You smell good,” she whispered, sleepily nuzzling the front of his shirt. She inhaled that attractive scent that was even more noticeable to her now that she’d gone months without it. “Why do you have to smell so good?” she whinged, “’s not fair you’re so attractive.”

“Think it’s past your bedtime, Millah,” he said dryly. When she didn’t move, he scooped her up off the sofa, grunting, “’m taking you to bed.”

“For humans there’s usually snogging and foreplay first,” she teased him. 

Hardy immediately put her down. Ellie staggered, fetching up against the door to her bedroom. The flat spun around like a carousel as she tipped her head back to look up at him. Had he always been so tall? 

Ellie almost lost her balance again, but Hardy steadied her with his hands on her hips. And it had been too long, far too long since anyone had touched her like that. 

“’m not kissing you,” he repeated what he’d told her in the boatyard, “You’re-”

“Not anymore,” she reminded him and his hands fell away from her. 

“Do you want to…?” she proposed, motioning to the bedroom behind her. The flat tilted like another carnival ride and Hardy doubled before her very eyes. 

“I’ve read about vampires, y’know?” she divulged, laying a hand on his chest and smiling in what she hoped was a seductive manner. “I read _Shades of Blood and Gloaming_ ,” she whispered with an exaggerated sexy wink.

“Shades of what?” Hardy asked bemusedly. 

“The one with the trillionaire vampire and his donor Stasia Swan. He kidnaps her to be his sex slave-”

“Stop.” Hardy held up a hand and backed away from her. “Purge that rubbish from your memory,” he said sternly, “A lot of stupid women got killed over a daft fantasy. They should’ve banned the book sooner.”

Ellie knew she should shut up, but she was drunk and her lips kept flapping.

“But you said donors were paid for their services,” she slurred, “And when you bit me, it felt like - like a kiss-”

Hardy gave her an icy glare that stopped her in mid-sentence. 

“You’re pissed,” he said bluntly. 

“I don’t want you to bite me,” Ellie laboured to explain as tears of humiliation filled her eyes, “I just want to feel _something_ other than _this_ ” - She banged a fist against her broken aching heart. - “And I - I thought vampires…” She trailed off as Hardy stone-walled her with a blank face.

“You assumed that we were all reborn with insatiable appetites and that I’d be a willing one-night surrogate for your husband,” Hardy concluded, his voice flat. 

Ellie wondered if it was possible to die of humiliation. Hardy was unnaturally still, but even in her drunken stupor, she noticed his thumb rubbed over his left ring finger. He stopped, stuffing his hands into his pockets, but she’d observed what could’ve been a tan line from a recently removed wedding band.

“You should’ve told me you had a Mate,” she accused him.

“I don’t,” he snapped.

“Jus’ not interested then,” she sneered, “Can’t blame you, ‘m a washed-up former detective and a failing single mother of two.” She went into the bedroom but Hardy followed her inside.

“You’re _astonishing_ ,” he hissed, his eyes blazing. “The Institute sent me to Broadchurch to protect _you_ , Miller. Jack aged _because_ of you.” Ellie backed into the edge of the bed, but Hardy kept going. “If the Golden Age hadn’t ended, you and your sons would’ve inherited a _fortune_ almost six hundred years in the making.” 

Ellie sat down hard, but the room was swaying like a boat trapped in a squall.

“Most vampires are in hiding, but there are a few that are going to be very interested in you.” He hesitated, before adding, “Nige didn’t stumble upon the dry docks by accident, I think he was tracking you.” 

Ellie felt queasy and nauseated. She tipped forward, resting her elbows on her knees. 

“I don’ want Jack’s money,” she hiccupped.

“It’s not about the money,” Hardy said and kneeled down at her feet. “It’s about power.” 

“’s that gotta do with me? ‘m not” - She hiccupped again. - “’m human, ‘m not special.”

Hardy brushed her hair out of her eyes. 

“You were to Jack.”

“Doesn’ matter,” she slurred and hiccupped. “He’s gone, like the rest of ‘em, and everyone – _everyone_ blames me for their deaths.”

“Ellie,” he breathed and grazed her hairline with his fingertips, “They can’t see this, but I can. Jack _Marked_ you.”

Ellie stared at him until her vision blurred and her mouth went bone dry. 

“Hardy?” she croaked as her stomach roiled. 

“Mm?”

“Think – think ‘m gonna-” 

She lurched forward and vomited on the carpet. Hardy was already behind her, holding her hair back as she threw up the chocolates and wine. Once she was done emptying the contents of her stomach, he fetched her a glass of water and some towels. 

“Fred must’ve given me the bug,” she moaned as he helped her to the loo. 

“Or you’ve had too much to drink on an empty stomach,” he suggested. Getting sick had sobered her up a bit and she was mortified by her behaviour. 

“Hardy, ‘bout earlier-” she started, but Hardy interrupted her. 

“It’s already been forgotten,” he assured her, before grimacing and adding in a rush, “’s probably best if I don’t come ‘round again.” 

“Yeah,” she agreed, bitterly adding, “Merry Christmas.”

Hardy lifted a hand and tucked one of her curls behind her ear. Ellie’s breath caught in her throat and her heart skipped a beat. She swayed toward him, but Hardy rocked back on his heels. 

“You had some vomit in your hair,” he explained, wiping his fingers off on a tea towel. 

“Oh, ta.”

Ellie tried for a weak smile and failed spectacularly. He mumbled something about her feeling better and walked off with the dirty towels and her jumper. Closing the door behind her, she sank down onto the lino floor and hugged her knees to her chest. 

“Shit. Shit. _Shit_ ,” she whispered, banging her forehead against her kneecaps. 

She’d screwed up and lost the only person left in her corner.

And now she was never going to see him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from Billy Joel's Piano Man. Obviously I don't own the fictional _Shades of Blood and Gloaming_. I'm sure y'all knew that 50 Shades of Grey was actually a Twilight fanfic, but I couldn't resist having a bit of fun. FYI you'll probably see or have seen some other nods to fandoms. This is NOT going to be a smutty fic or anything like those books. I'm more of a slow-burn-will-they-won't-they kind of gal. As for Ellie's OOCish behavior, we have no idea how she coped during those months before we jumped into S2, and then she asks SOCO Brian out, gets drunk w Claire and has a one-night stand with a stranger. (Also I couldn't have Hardy ask Becca out in this fic so I tried to imagine Ellie being in a similar cringe-worthy situation, poor Ellie.) Thanks y'all for reading!


	8. A Mark Steeped in Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy tracks down a fledgling. Ellie gets a visitor.

December and January slipped away, but Hardy couldn’t stop thinking about the disastrous Christmas Eve he’d spent with Miller. He’d stayed to clean up and to ensure that she hadn’t drowned herself in the shower. She hadn’t gotten sick again, but he’d lingered well into the morning until he’d established that she and the baby would be fine.

Miller asked for a weekly update on the fledgling situation via text, but their exchanges were brief and strictly professional now. Fred never got a hold of her phone anymore. Hardy limited his stakeouts outside her building and was careful not to attract the attention of her nosy neighbours. 

He told himself it was better this way. But instead of rivers, blood, and snow, he dreamed about a sleepy Miller curled up under his arm or inviting him into her bed with an adorably bad pickup line. In those dreams, Hardy was human, Miller was sober and vampires didn’t exist. 

Hardy spent a lot of his downtime dwelling on what might’ve happened if they’d met in that alternate universe. Tonight, after he’d confirmed the identity of his fledgling target, Hardy wished he could’ve existed in a world where he’d never been forced to teach at the Police Academy. 

“Let the girl go, Barker,” Hardy instructed his former student. 

“It’s Jonathan _Harker_ ,” Not-Barker spat. Hardy estimated the vampire had been turned roughly nine months ago, and he was surprisingly well-adjusted for his fledgling status. Hardy wanted to bring him into the facility, but Not-Barker was unwilling to release the human he’d picked up with the tantalizing offer of sex and drugs. 

“I was in your class for six weeks,” Not-Barker snarled, “There were only twenty-five of us and you never got _any_ of our names right. How hard is it to remember someone’s name?”

“What’s hers?” Hardy quizzed him, nodding to the young woman.

“Mina,” she piped up, cracking her chewing gum and grinning up at her attractive captor, “I’m a bit bored with this choking and weird roleplay scenario, but if it involves a threesome with the DILF than I’m totally down.” 

“DILF?” Hardy blurted and the youths rolled their eyes. 

“Dad I’d like to fu-”

“Oh... yeah, got it," Hardy interrupted her, clearing his throat and returning to the more pressing matter. "Why don’t you let Mina go home, Harkness.”

“It’s Har- _ker_!” he corrected Hardy, his eyes bulging. 

“Cut him some slack, Jon,” Mina said, rubbing at the forearm that was pressed against her throat in a loose chokehold. “Old people start to forget things.”

“Vampires don’t,” Not-Barker scoffed.

“Right, he’s a vampire,” Mina snorted, giving Hardy a once-over. “If this is going to be one of those _Shades of Blood and Gloaming_ fetish things, I’m out. I’m not playing Stasia, she was such a whiny little bitch.”

“Agreed,” Not-Barker chimed in, nodding. Mina and Hardy both looked at him. “What? Lulu’s a big fan,” he defended himself hotly. “Lulu’s still mad Stasia went back to the Vampire instead of the Shapeshifting Ghost who sacrificed his life to save her.”

“Oh, I loved Taylor!” Mina gushed, twisting around to try to get a better look at Not-Barker. “Lulu sounds cool.”

“She is,” Not-Barker said with a dreamy smile, “You’ll love her.”

“Does Lulu have another name?” Hardy tried to be casual, but Not-Barker’s fangs came out. 

“Lulu told me you’re a _Wraith_ ,” Not-Barker snarled.

“Former Wraith,” Hardy corrected him.

“You’ll lock her up or break her neck,” Not-Barker snapped. 

“I just want to talk to her,” Hardy said, holding his hands aloft. “I think she’s an old friend of mine, but I need a name, Jake.”

“Jon,” Mina interjected helpfully, before Not-Barker finally snapped. 

The moment he moved, Hardy caught Mina and threw her into the barn door. The doors blew open from the impact. Hardy hoped she’d recover and run, as Not-Barker slammed into him with the full-force of a stronger, younger and angrier vampire. Fledglings were usually blood-crazed and undisciplined like Nige, but Hardy was facing one that had unfortunately outgrown that stage and even worse, one that was in love. 

There were no limits to what a human might do for love, but a vampire in love was chaos incarnated. 

Three minutes later, Not-Barker had gained the upper hand and had impressively trapped Hardy in a headlock with his arms twisted behind his back. 

“You don’t want to do this,” Hardy tried to reason with him, but the younger vampire was past the point of no return. 

“This is for Lulu,” Not-Barker hissed, fully prepared to snap Hardy’s neck. 

Hardy closed his eyes and thought of Daisy. But instead of Daisy, a memory of Miller smiling flashed through his mind, and suddenly the younger vampire howled. Hardy was dropped into a pile of straw and forgotten. 

“You stupid fucking chav!” Not-Barker growled. 

Mina was backing away from them with a bloodied pitch-fork. In an instant, the other vampire had lunged for her and the tables had turned. 

“We were going to turn you,” Not-Barker hissed, pinning the human to the ground, “We were going to gift you with immortality and bring you to him.” 

Hardy lifted the vampire off of a gasping Mina and slammed him into the nearest wall. The whole barn trembled the impact but amazingly the walls held. 

“Tell me her name,” he barked, tilting the former cadet’s head at a sharp, painful ninety degree angle, “Tell me their names and I’ll let you live.”

Not-Barker laughed bitterly. 

“No, you won’t.”

“Jonathan,” Hardy said and Jonathan froze. “When you’re in love, you think you’re gonna be interlocked forever. Love’s all encompassing when you’re in it, but really, you can’t trust anyone. Ultimately we’re all alone.”

“I’m not alone,” Jonathan argued, but he wasn’t certain. 

“Where is she now?” Hardy scoffed and a spasm went through the fledgling. “She’s been gone for days. She’s not coming back Jonathan.”

“Then take me in,” Jonathan offered, choking up, “Take me in, but not my Lulu. She’s good, not like Ash-”

Something stabbed Hardy in the back and the excruciating pain blocked out everything else. Jonathan elbowed him, knocking Hardy flat onto his back. Mina had skewered Jonathan to the wall before the fledgling could react. Jonathan screamed and tried to pull the pitchfork out. Hardy understood his pain as he struggled to his feet.

“Mina, stop,” Hardy urged her and she turned to him incredulously. 

“Shouldn’t you be like totally dead now?”

“I’ve got nine lives,” he deadpanned. 

“Eight after I spear you with this thing,” she threatened, but he could see her confidence starting to crumble as Jonathan kept thrashing and wrestling with the pitchfork. “Why isn’t the prick dead yet?” she snapped.

Jonathan tore the pitchfork out, but before Hardy could grab it, the young woman rammed it back into the weakened vampire. She must’ve hit Jonathan’s heart, because the vampire froze with his mouth open in a silent scream. Bracing her foot against the wall, Mina yanked the pitchfork from the body. Jonathan’s lifeless body flopped at Hardy’s feet, but he snapped the fledgling’s neck just to be safe. 

“Is he dead?” Mina asked fearfully. 

“Totally,” Hardy answered, mimicking her. 

Mina aimed the pitchfork at him. The metal was bent from Jonathan’s struggle with it, but he’d splintered the rotting wood at the base too, right where the weapon had entered the fledgling’s heart. 

“You’ve got ten seconds to tell me where he keeps his heroin stash,” she warned him. 

“He lied, Mina, there’s no heroin,” he sighed. “It was all a ploy to get you to come here.”

Mina blew another bubble and snapped it between her teeth. 

“For kinky sex?” 

“He’s a vampire,” Hardy reminded her, losing patience, “I think he planned to turn you.”

“And you expect me to believe that you’re a vampire too?” Her brows shot up into her electric blue fringe as she sceptically raked her eyes over him. “Thought vampires were supposed to be young and sexy and heartless?”

“Who said I had a heart?” he retorted. 

“I heard your sappy speech,” she revealed, “Someone broke your heart badly. Was it Pippa?”

Hardy had been about to disarm her, but everything stopped when he heard that name. 

“The bloke that gave me a hundred quid and promised me a barn full of drugs to shag this one” – She pointed at what was left of Jonathan Harker – “He told me someone might show up to crash the party. Told me to tell you that. Remember Pippa.”

“What’d he look like?” Hardy demanded.

“Don’t remember,” she lied, shrugging, “But if you tell me where they’re keeping the drugs or hand over another two hundred quid, it _might_ jog my memory,” she suggested with a saccharine smile. Hardy cursed the fact that he didn’t have any money on him. 

“I’ve got nothing, but there aren’t any drugs here. They don’t have an effect on vampires,” he explained, but she didn’t care. 

Mina speared Hardy with the damaged pitchfork and he blacked out from the pain. 

When he came to himself, Mina was gone and his pockets had all been slashed as if she hadn’t believed him about the money. 

It took him a long time to extract the rusty pitchfork from his body. One of the prongs had come perilously close to his heart. Hardy believed that the metal had been blessed with a kind of faith he rarely encountered. Probably some sort of modern Paganism. Someone loved this farm; the land, the barn and the pitchfork had likely been in the family for centuries. 

Hardy had nothing against faith, but it didn’t like him. 

Groaning, he staggered to his feet and fetched up against the splintered barn door. 

_Remember Pippa_.

As if he could ever forget the weight of that poor girl’s body in his arms. Closing his eyes, Hardy pressed his forehead against the wood. 

If they’d turned one of his former students and they’d followed him to Somerset, then they’d already tracked him through Dorset and Devon. And if they’d been following him closely, then they knew about…

“ _Fuck_ ,” Hardy swore and ran out of the barn. 

*

A little over a month had passed since that mortifying Christmas Eve. Her memories of that night were a bit fuzzy, but Ellie wished she’d had Baxter around to alter the cringe-worthy memory. She would’ve begged Hardy, but that would’ve required facing him again. In spite of her inappropriate behaviour, he was still taking the fledgling issue seriously and keeping her up to date via weekly texts. 

Ellie missed the occasional phone calls. They’d always been brief, but it had been nice to have that verbal confirmation that someone cared and that someone was keeping a watchful eye over her beloved town, her former friends and Tom.

Devon was awful, her job was awful, and she was an awful mother who’d failed her eldest son. It killed her that Tom insisted on staying in Broadchurch with Lucy and Olly. Ellie had tried everything from bribery to tearful begging, but even after she’d settled into her new job and in a furnished flat in Devon, Tom stubbornly refused to join her and Fred. 

One weekend after another futile argument with Tom, Ellie left Fred with Lucy for the night with the forlorn hope that maybe Tom would change his mind for the sake of his baby brother. She let herself into the flat and deadbolted it behind her, before collapsing face first into her bed. 

She slept fitfully, but someone swearing in the adjoining flat woke her in the middle of the night. Ellie clamped a pillow over her ears, but the neighbours were having yet another domestic and broadcasting it to at least ten other tenants. 

“‘M tellin’ you, there’s a bloke out there covered in blood.”

“You’re high Jamie, you’re always bloody high-”

“’e jus’ vanished! ‘s a ghost!”

“Next it’ll be aliens. Why can’t you stay sober for one bloody weekend?”

The neighbours continued to squabble, but Ellie was distracted by a thump that could’ve been blamed on her upstairs neighbours, if it hadn’t been accompanied by the rattling of the fire escape and the squeak of a window opening. 

Ellie leapt out of bed and retrieved the heavy metal torch she kept by the nightstand. Her heart was racing as she tiptoed out of the bedroom into the only other room bigger than a box in her shabby flat. 

It was impossible to miss the intruder. The shadowy figure seemed larger than life as his shadow elongated to where she stood. She could smell something that reminded her of Jack’s shop, but it was soaked in the metallic scent of blood that wasn’t quite human. She didn’t bother going for the lights, instead she lifted her torch and struck at him with all of her strength. 

“‘Fuck’s sake, Millah, ‘s me,” hissed a Scottish voice she recognized. 

“Hardy?”

She fumbled for the light, but he caught her by the arms, plucking the torch from her hand and dragging her over to the sagging second-hand sofa. Moonlight streamed in through the blinds, painting a horrific picture for her. Hardy’s hands were slick with blood and his clothes were torn and filthy. 

“You idiot,” she snapped, “What have you done? Are you hurt?”

“No,” he grunted, but Ellie ran her hands over him. There was at least one worrying slash across his lapels, but he was wearing so many layers that Ellie couldn’t tell if he was injured. 

“Take off your coat,” she instructed him. “I’m going to get the lights and a towel.”

“Wait,” Hardy said, yanking her back down next to him, a few inches closer than she’d been moments ago. 

“Just hold still.” His grip on her arms wasn’t that tight, but his sudden close proximity and the parallels to the last time he was blood-stained and starving, sent a bolt of fear through her. 

Ellie’s hand lifted and cracked across his face. 

“I’m not a fucking buffet,” she spat and he flinched. “I don’t care if you’re hurt. You can’t just feed on me any time you fancy it.”

“I’m not going to feed on you,” Hardy interrupted her with a sigh, “I’m here to help, but you need to hold still.”

“How is this helping me?” she asked shrilly, “You’re getting blood on the upholstery.”

“I’ll pay for it,” he promised, “Trust me, alright?”

“The last time I trusted you-”

“You’re still alive,” he pointed out, “I’d like to keep it that way,” he growled with an underlying threat, “So if you could just hold still…” 

It wasn’t the threat that convinced her to cooperate. Ellie remembered the way Hardy had looked at her when he’d discovered Nige’s bite on her neck; Hardy was _scared_. 

Reluctantly, she crossed her arms over her chest and waited impatiently. 

Hardy took her face in his sticky hands, and she tensed up. 

“Relax, Miller, I’m not going to hurt you,” he soothed her. “Close your eyes,” he whispered. 

Ellie felt his fingertips wet against her cheek and hairline, painting lines like war paint, but she was distracted by the murmured words that rolled off his tongue like an incantation. 

“You’re under my protection. I give you my word, and the Mark of my blood, a promise that you will never be alone and will never want for anything for as long as you may live.”

Ellie experienced an odd sense of déjà vu. A blurry memory surfaced of a young Jack crouched down in front of her, and then she saw a clearer memory of Jack again, older and wearier and next to her in the car, less than an hour before he’d sacrificed himself to a mob. Hardy tapped her forehead and Ellie’s eyes flew open. 

“What are you doing?” she asked warily. 

“I’m _Marking_ you,” Hardy explained and Ellie jerked away from him. He let her go and she switched on the light before rushing into the tiny water closet. The mirror painted a disgusting picture. 

“You got blood all over me,” she sniped at him, switching on the tap.

“That’s the point,” Hardy told her and leaned against the doorjamb behind her. 

“I’m washing this off.”

“Go ahead,” he challenged her. 

Ellie scrubbed at her face, but even though the blood washed off with water, she felt as if Hardy had left a permanent tattoo on her that she couldn’t wash off. 

“Do I even want to know what happened?” she asked, eyeing his filthy, blood-stained clothes. “Please tell me that’s not your blood.” 

Hardy’s lips quirked but he said nothing. He looked tired, and she felt a tiny bit of sympathy for him. 

“Strip your clothes off and get in the shower,” she instructed him.

“Millah,” he groaned, tipping his head back. 

“ _Now_ ,” she ordered him as if he were a child, and not a creature who could snap her neck and bleed her dry. 

Hardy glowered at her, but he must’ve been too knackered to argue with her. He shucked off his coat, revealing a torn button-down shirt, and muddy slacks ripped at the knees. A hiss of pain escaped him and his fingers fumbled on the buttons. 

“Stop being dramatic,” she sighed and took over the task for him. 

Hardy grumbled protests at her, but she’d already opened the shirt and pushed it from his shoulders. Ellie ripped the ruined undershirt right down the middle and gasped. Hardy’s chest was sparsely covered in hair and littered with silvery scars. And there were three parallel wounds that were still bleeding: one just a few inches shy of his heart. 

“What did they do to you?” 

“She tried to skewer me with a pitchfork. _Twice_ ,” he recounted, “Right after I saved the ungrateful girl from a fledgling,” he groused as she retrieved a towel. 

“Are you alright?” she asked, pressing it against the wound nearest his heart. 

“I’ll live,” he assured her. 

Ellie knew that vampires healed much faster than humans. She’d learned from her experience with Nige how difficult it was to kill one, even if you did manage to strike their heart, but she didn’t like seeing Hardy wounded. 

Hardy helped her remove the tattered remains of his Oxford and Henley. Then he unbuckled his belt with a grimace, sliding it through the belt loops. A broken finger and a nasty gash on his dominant arm were making movement difficult for him, but he had another trio of ugly wounds on his lower back. Ellie swiftly unbuttoned his trousers to get a better look and Hardy grasped her arm hard.

“Miller,” he hissed between gritted teeth. 

“For fuck’s sake, Hardy, how many times do I have to apologize for Christmas Eve?” she demanded, “Trust me, ‘m not interested in shagging you.”

Hardy grunted, but he didn’t let go of her arm. His expression was pained, but his eyes were feverishly bright.

“I know it hurts,” she soothed him. “I’m only trying to help you,” she reminded him, refusing to back down from his unsettling gaze.

“You’re making it worse,” he rumbled and she shivered. 

Her other hand was still trapped between them and curled at his hip. She gave his trousers an experimental tug and Hardy snarled, baring his teeth. In the blink of an eye, he had her by the arms and backed up against the sink. 

“Let go of me,” she ordered him and he released her at once. He gave her as much space as he could, but the water closet was too small to contain her, let alone a six-foot one vampire. 

Ellie took a deep breath. 

“I don't want blood tracked through my flat,” she warned him.

“I'll clean up,” he assured her and some of the tension drained from the room.

“Leave your clothes outside the door,” she instructed him, edging toward the door. “There's a first aid kit and bleach under the sink. I nicked some of Jack’s supply, just in case you showed up here.”

“Miller,” Hardy sighed, his shoulders slumping and his face softening, “I could kiss you.”

“’m not kissing you,” she shot back and some of the lingering awkwardness from Christmas Eve faded. 

Flustered, Ellie left, pulling the door shut behind her. She leaned against the door listening to Hardy curse and wrestle with his trousers and his injuries. She waited until she heard the shower running and then she dug out a couple of pints of synthetic blood for Hardy. 

There was a pile of filthy clothes waiting for her outside the loo. Ellie left him a plush robe and flannel pyjama bottoms that she'd given Joe on their last Christmas together, but had kept for herself because they were so comfy. By the time she’d started the wash, the clean clothes and the blood packets were gone. Ellie made tea, even though she knew Hardy was unlikely to drink it.

It was over an hour before he came out of the loo, clean, bandaged and smelling like he tried to drink her entire bottle of mouthwash. 

“That loo better be sparkling,” she said mock threateningly as he sat down next to her at the table.

“Did you eat?” she asked tentatively. 

Hardy nodded and blushed, assuaging some of her fears. 

“You'll stay here tonight,” she stated, draining her tea. He opened his mouth to protest, but she spoke over him. “You're exhausted and you need time to heal.”

Hardy stared at his hands, but he didn't argue with her. 

“How many fledglings did you have to kill?” she wondered.

“Only one tonight,” he replied. Grimacing, he cracked his broken finger back into place. 

“Did you get whoever’s been siring them?” she asked, even though she knew by looking at Hardy that he hadn't.

“I know who it is,” Hardy said, scrubbing his hands over his face, “But I can’t prove it.”

“Why can't you bring her in?”

“Them,” Hardy corrected her and Ellie’s blood went cold at the mixture of anger and frustration that flickered over Hardy’s face. “The three of them are working together,” he revealed.

“You've dealt with one of them before,” she realized.

“I can't prove it,” he reminded her, staring past her and through a window to a hell she couldn't even begin to imagine. “I need to be _certain_ this time,” he said more to himself than her. 

“I don't know if I can help you, but if there is anything I can do…” she trailed off. 

“I'll let you know,” he promised, and the softness in his eyes made him seem so painfully human that her heart lurched in her chest.

“You can take my bed,” she said charitably. “I’ve got to be up in two hours, mind as well make myself a pot of coffee.”

“Sorry,” he apologized and pushed to his feet. “I had to Mark you while the blood was still fresh.” 

He came around the table and gently touched her cheek. Ellie tipped her head up and he scanned her face.

“This isn't some weird vampire mating ritual, is it?” Ellie teased him and she swore he blushed again, although his facial expression hardly changed. 

“It's to protect you,” he explained and ghosted the tip of his thumb over her brow. “Jack Marked you when you were a wee bairn, but he's dead now, so I put you under my protection.”

Ellie rolled her eyes and commented, “How chauvinistic of you.” But she was ashamed that she actually liked the way Hardy traced over his own handiwork on her other cheek with his eyes.

“I owe it to him and to you,” he said, shrugging. “‘Sides only vampires can see these Marks. Hopefully you won't ever come face to face with another one.”

“Hopefully,” she echoed. 

He squeezed her shoulder. Hardy wasn't warm but he didn't feel cool either; Ellie couldn't help but remember him in the dry docks caressing her as her body's natural warmth transferred to him. 

“I’ll do my best to keep you from them,” he said solemnly, “You have my word.”

Hardy left her at the table and closed the door to her bedroom. 

And Ellie wondered if Hardy were to get careless again, if there was anyone or anything that could protect her _from_ him.

Ellie still left him the spare key to her flat, so he could lock up while she was at work. She was disappointed when both him and the key were gone, but he’d left some sort of vegetarian dish that Fred shockingly seemed to enjoy and a salad (she hated salad) in the fridge. 

*

Three weeks later, Hardy showed up again. This time he knocked and came in through the front door with the spare key. 

Fred had been teething and refusing to sleep for the last three nights, and Ellie was crabby and definitely _not_ in the mood to deal with Hardy's drama. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” she snapped. 

Fred started crying again as soon as Hardy entered the flat. Ellie was so tired that she was ready to start crying too. Vampire’s ears were more sensitive than humans, and Ellie relished Hardy’s flinch as Fred exercised his full lung capacity. 

“Let me take him,” Hardy offered desperately. 

Ellie was so strung out that she didn't stop him from lifting Fred from her arms. Hardy shushed Fred and brought him up to his shoulder. He paced around her flat and rubbed the baby’s back, whispering to him until to her amazement, Fred was reduced to soft fussy whimpers again. Ellie was knackered and stunned; it didn't occur to her what the smudges on the back of Fred’s onesie were until it was too late to undo the damage. 

“What the fuck do you think you're doing?” she snarled, jumping up from the sofa and tearing her baby from his blood-stained arms. “You're getting blood all over him.”

Fred started screaming and Hardy cringed. He stripped off his filthy coat and suit jacket and dropped them to the floor of the sitting room. Fred screeched louder as Hardy held up his bloody hand.

“I want to _Mark_ him,” he said over Fred’s wails, inching toward her with his other hand by his ear. “Please, Miller, Jack didn't have time.”

Ellie stopped, boxing herself into a corner of the room. 

“Jack _Marked_ Tom?” she asked incredulously as Fred's cries reached a crescendo. “When did he manage to do that?”

“I didn't ask,” Hardy ground out, “Now can I please hold…?” The fact that he forgot Fred's name seemed ridiculously human.

“Fred,” she sighed and handed him over. 

“If you so much as sniff him I’ll take your head off myself,” she warned him as Fred’s screaming died down again.

“Relax, Miller, _shhh_ ,” he shushed her and the baby. 

Ellie wondered if she’d made a mistake as Hardy’s voice took on a soft silky quality she'd never heard from him before. 

“Go sit down, you look tired.” 

Ellie was past exhausted, and she gratefully sank onto the sofa. 

Hardy retreated to the other side of the small flat, rocking, swaying and murmuring to Fred in that same soothing tone. Ellie watched through half-lidded eyes as Hardy swiped his thumb over Fred’s forehead. Fred’s whimpers had stopped altogether and he was gazing up at Hardy with wide glassy eyes. 

“I'm going to put him down,” he said and she nodded.

Fred fussed when Hardy tried to put him in the crib. Ellie waited for the cries to start up again, but instead she heard a haunting melody coming from the nursery. Hardy hummed the first few bars and softly sang the chorus. It was the sort of song that brought tears to one’s eyes and raised goose flesh on one’s arms, more so now because it had been banned for decades. Ellie had caught snatches of it in a documentary and in pubs, but human voices couldn't do it justice.

No one knew whether the vampire composer had been mourning a human lover, a family she watched die, or the loss of her humanity, but everyone agreed that it was one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. Sympathizers wielded it as a reminder that vampires still had beating hearts and souls that could be saved. 

Watching Hardy with Fred was more than enough proof for her. 

Ellie didn't recall moving, but when Hardy sang the last line the baby was asleep in his crib and she was crying in the doorway.

“You had children,” she realized.

Hardy swiped at his face and stared at his bloody hand.

“I need to clean up,” he said.

“Right,” Ellie sniffled and wiped at her eyes with her index finger. “Are you injured?”

“I’ll manage,” he said stiffly and swept past her. 

Ellie checked on Fred, but he was sleeping soundly, undisturbed by the blood smear on his forehead. Ellie hesitated and left it there; she didn't want to wake him. She left Hardy a packet of the synthetic blood and Joe’s old robe and pyjama bottoms. Uncertain of his condition, she curled up on the sofa and promptly fell asleep.

She woke slowly as Hardy carried her into the bedroom. Ellie thought she was dreaming as he folded back the duvet and laid her down on the bed. 

“You alright?” she asked groggily, pulling the duvet up over herself. “Eat and everything?”

“Yeah,” he whispered. Ellie hadn't slept in almost three days and she was already drifting off again, when he spoke suddenly.

“A daughter.”

Ellie’s eyelashes fluttered and she strained to focus on the shadow perched next to her on the bed. Her eyes hadn't adjusted to the darkness, but she could tell by the hunch of his shoulders that his daughter was either dead or was estranged from him. Many vampires considered those they sired as their adult ‘children’, but Ellie had witnessed the way Hardy had handled Fred. He'd loved and cared for an infant at some point in his past.

“Is she…?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question. Yesterday, Ellie couldn't picture Hardy as a father, but now her heart broke at the thought of a daughter being ripped from him.

“Go to sleep, Miller,” he rasped, his voice raw. 

Ellie’s eyes closed as he traced over the Marks on her brow. She caught his hand and squeezed his fingers. There weren’t any words in the English language that could remedy the loss of a child, but Ellie held his cold hand until her fingers went limp and sleep reclaimed her. 

The next morning, Hardy was gone by the time she stepped into the kitchen, but Fred’s bottle was already prepared and the toast and the tea were still warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mina and Jonathan are obviously from the imagination of Bram Stoker, but he'd probably have an aneurysm if he read my bastardized versions of those characters. (I did not finish the book, I was so disappointed in it, but I might attempt it again once I get over it not being what I'd expected.) Next up Joe's sentencing! Thanks y'all for reading and leaving comments!


	9. A Savage Fury Unleashed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie and Hardy have a contentious meeting at Joe's sentencing.

By the time Joe Miller’s sentencing arrived in late March, Hardy had almost convinced himself that he’d had no choice; if another vampire had tracked him to Devon, Miller and wee Fred were in danger. They had to be Marked. Placing Tom under his protection would be difficult, but since the boy was living separately from his mother, Hardy hoped that he’d remain safe from any unwanted attention Miller would inevitably attract. 

In retrospect, Hardy should’ve asked more explicitly for Miller’s permission, but they’d turned one of his former students and he’d panicked. Jonathan and his sire had both turned someone in the week of Jonathan’s demise. Hardy wasted weeks eliminating their fledglings and cleaning up the mess they’d left in their wake. 

The Institute had even sent Jocelyn down for a tedious face to face meeting, just to confirm that Hardy hadn’t been the one wreaking havoc in Somerset. Hardy liked the whip-smart barrister, but meeting with her in Broadchurch had cost him the trail of the elusive ‘Lulu’.

“I’m impressed you passed Jack’s rigorous inspection. How’d you get on with Ellie Miller?” Jocelyn had asked him with an arched brow. 

Hardy had never been more grateful that he’d saved Baxter’s life all those years ago and that the doctor had taken care of the standard follow-up interview with Miller. Baxter might’ve been on another continent, but he’d saved Hardy’s arse again before he’d left. 

“She’s a good detective,” he’d finally answered, and thanked Saint Mark that Jocelyn had been sent out instead of a Wraith or a vampire. Jocelyn had scrutinized him for a long moment before Maggie had broken into the house, giving Hardy an excuse to leave.

Hardy was so anxious to see Miller again at Joe’s sentencing that he forgot about the metal detector at the entrance to the courthouse. 

“Pacemaker,” he lied smoothly, submitting himself to an old-fashioned frisking while the other guard scrutinized a forged card from the NHS in his billfold. The irony was never lost on him that if he hadn’t been turned the pacemaker would’ve been a legitimate issue. 

“You’re good to go,” the guard said, returning his billfold. 

No one ever noticed that the slim piece of metal wasn’t the right size or in the right spot.

But Hardy was always hyperaware that the implantation could be the end of him. 

*

Ellie arrived late to the sentencing and Joe’s head immediately swivelled to look at her. Hardy tried to get her attention, but she sat as far away as possible from Joe, Hardy and the accusatory stares from the Latimers. When Joe wasn’t trying to appear innocent and contrite for the judge and his solicitor, her husband was glaring at her or the only vampire in the courtroom with thinly veiled fury and disgust.

He pleaded guilty. 

Ellie’s relief didn’t last longer than her exhale. Joe had received a severely shortened sentence that had Beth, Mark and Chloe sobbing and spitting mad. Judging from the looks she was receiving; Ellie worried the plea deal Joe had obviously cut had something to do with her and her former boss. 

After Joe was escorted out of the courtroom, Ellie ran to the restroom and locked herself in one of the stalls to cry. Hardy had been hot on her heels, but Ellie didn’t have the patience to deal with him or anyone. 

She’d been under the impression that Hardy had been human long enough to understand the concept of boundaries and personal space. When the knob knocked on the door to her stall, she realized she’d been mistaken. 

“He could be out on good behaviour in five years,” she raged at his reflection in the mirror over the sink. “What if he touches another boy? What if he comes after Tom and Fred?” 

“I’ll break his neck,” Hardy said calmly, and Ellie glimpsed the feral creature that was buttoned up beneath the suit of humanity. 

“He will not touch you or your boys. Not while I'm still walking the earth,” he growled. 

She crossed her arms over her chest to disguise a shiver, but he noticed and misinterpreted it. 

“You should've let me kill him when I had the chance,” he groused.

“Don't you dare put this on me,” she shot back at him, jabbing a finger at his chest. “The only reason why he has any leverage is because of you.”

Hardy spread his arms wide.

“What was I supposed to do, Miller, let you die?” 

“You could've left the boatyard after we were done with Nige,” she persisted. 

“And you could've gone back to the bloody car,” he suggested. 

“I wish I had!” she hissed, clapping a hand over the bite on her neck. “But if I'd left you there, you would've gone after someone else.” 

Guilt passed over Hardy's face and flickered in his wounded eyes. 

“You don't know that,” he said softly. “Miller…” 

Hardy laid an icy hand on her shoulder and she flinched violently. Recoiling from her, he jammed his hands into his pockets and looked at his feet.

“I would've let you go,” he told her, but Ellie wasn't so sure anymore.

“You can't now, though, can you?” she scoffed. He opened his mouth but she spoke over him. “You've _Marked_ me. You didn't even ask, you just left these permanent tattoos on me and Fred, branding us like we’re your property.”

Ellie must’ve hit a nerve and flicked a switch in him. Hardy prowled closer, his eyes smouldering with hints of a savage fiery rage.

“You have no idea what’s waiting for you outside this building,” he hissed, “I can’t watch you all the bloody time.”

“I never asked you to stalk me,” she retorted and those inhuman eyes burned like kindle. 

“Are you even listening to me? I’m trying to keep you _alive_.”

“You know for someone who found the idea of bedding me revolting, you spend an awful lot of your time peeping on me,” she sneered. 

“Revolting?” he sputtered, apoplectic and seething. “For God’s sake, Miller, it doesn’t matter what I think of you, I could lose my head for _looking_ at a human.”

“And what does your employer say about _biting_ humans or _Marking_ them?” she demanded and his face turned a sickening shade of white. 

“That’s what I thought,” she snorted.

Ellie wasn’t sure what he would’ve said or done if a woman hadn’t walked into the restroom talking loudly on a headset. Hardy banished her with a single glance in her direction. By the time he’d returned his attention to Ellie, he’d shuttered everything behind a marble mask. 

“Forgive me for Marking you,” he said coldly, “I thought I owed it to Jack to keep you alive.”

“It's your fault he's gone,” she lashed out at him, because there wasn't anyone else to take all the pent-up rage and guilt and grief that was threatening to override her. She was so mad at Joe, at Hardy and the unfairness of it all that she was physically shaking. 

“I never should've asked him for help. I wish you never came to Broadchurch,” she pressed between clenched teeth. 

She aimed a kick at the ‘Wet Floor’ placard. When that didn't relieve the burning pressure beneath her skin, she picked the placard up and threw it at him. The sign fell short of Hardy, collapsing at his feet, but it was _excruciating_ knowing that even if she had managed to hit him, it wouldn't have made a dent.

“Are you quite finished?” he asked evenly. 

“Don't come near me or my sons ever again,” she warned him. 

Ellie stalked out of the courthouse and made it all the way to her car. She was on the motorway before the anger abruptly left her all at once. She had to pull over because her hands were trembling and the sobs wouldn't stop. Ellie knew it wasn't Hardy's fault that she'd lost her family and friends and the only home she’d ever known, but she felt helpless and she hated it.

*

Ellie felt a little bad about the harsh things she’d said to Hardy in the days that followed, but she was never going to apologize. It wasn't like those words could touch him anyway; he wasn’t even human. Still, as the days merged into a week, and then two, she thought Hardy would disrespect her wishes and simply show up in retaliation. She was secretly looking forward to it, but nothing could have prepared her for _this_. 

Ellie stood frozen outside of her flat, because the door was already open. 

The doorknob and the deadbolt had been completely removed. Fred was mercifully asleep on her shoulder, but he stirred as she cautiously pushed the door open wider. 

Ellie’s heart beat fast and hard in her chest. From where she stood, she could see that the window was shattered and the TV had been broken. Every one of her instincts was screaming at her to run, but she forced herself to assess the damage.

The sofa was flipped over and the cushions had all been shredded. Someone had emptied her fridge and icebox onto the floor. There were gashes gouged into the kitchen table and cupboards. Her pillows had been ripped open and her bed stripped; the mattress slashed open. But the worst part was Fred’s crib. 

The crib had been smashed to smithereens.

The landlord came in behind her with her nosy neighbour demanding an explanation. Ellie had enough presence of mind to insist that it was a break-in and the flat spoke as evidence in itself. The landlord suggested calling the police. Ellie let him do that while she grabbed Fred’s nappy bag and stuffed some food, a few changes of clothes and some toiletries inside. She armed herself with her trusty torch and hurried back to her car, thanking God that Fred was on his best behaviour.

Ellie called Hardy. The cold-blooded creature picked up on the second ring.

“What?”

“You fucking _monster_ ,” she snarled, “If you come after me or my sons again, if you so much as touch the door to my flat or _look_ at my boys, I'll notify the authorities and have you executed. Do you understand me?”

“Miller?” 

“I did some research. Biting an unwilling human is still a Class VP-A offense,” she informed him, “All I need to do is show someone the bite on my neck and they'll kill you. If you come within a mile of me or my kids or our residence, I swear to God, Hardy, I will help them _burn_ you,” she threatened him. 

Hardy was dead silent on the other end of the line. And then, “Miller, where are you?”

“Like I'd tell you,” she spat and hung up on him. 

By the time Ellie stopped for petrol and checked in with Lucy, Hardy had called her thirteen times and had sent her over thirty text messages. 

Ellie told her sister not to let Tom out of her sight, but she didn’t mention the vampire and made up a story about several break-ins in the area of her flat. She didn’t want Luce to panic, but Ellie was terrified. Even when Hardy had been hunting Danny's killer and fighting off Nige, she'd never seen that level of rage from him, not up close and _never_ directed at her. 

Ellie had just got off the phone with Lucy, when another text came through from him. 

_They could be tracking you. Call me NOW._

For the first time, Ellie allowed herself to entertain the possibility that maybe Hardy hadn't trashed her flat. It wasn't his style. Ellie thought about how Hardy had handled Joe and Nige, quickly and efficiently, and he'd always stopped himself at her command. 

She scrolled through her messages, ten of them from Hardy demanding what the hell was going on. The remainder were from after he'd clearly seen the frightening state of her flat. 

Ellie had been driving for almost two hours, but she couldn’t stop now. Her phone vibrated and she picked it up.

“Are you alright? Where are you?” His voice was so raw with anxiety and worry that Ellie barely recognized it. 

“We’re fine. Physically,” she mollified, “But I’m not alright. You didn't do this?” 

“No. God, _no_ ,” his voice was cracking and all scrambled as if he couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “Ellie, I can’t even – I would _never_ -” His voice broke and he sucked in an unnecessary breath. “I’d rather be executed than harm you or wee Fred. Ellie, _please_ , I need you to believe me.” 

Ellie’s throat was clogged with a hard lump and she was forced to swallow past it to get to what she'd been dreading; the possibility that something much worse than Hardy was after her.

“ _If_ I were to believe that you didn't do this, who would be capable of this? And why me?” she interrogated him.

“Miller, I’ll explain everything, I promise, just tell me where you are.”

“I don't think that's a good idea,” she hedged and Hardy swore as she confirmed his fears. “If they're following me, they might be watching and listening to us right now.”

“Get back in the car,” Hardy instructed her, “Check your phone before you leave the petrol station and please, Miller, be careful.” 

She rang off and got back into her vehicle. 

Hardy had messaged her three different addresses of hotels in areas where he guessed she might’ve headed. Ellie started driving toward the closest one, and then rerouted to the third address and most unlikely, judging from the location. 

It took hours for her to ensure that she didn't have a tail and Fred slept through it all. 

The hotel looked like something out of a low budget horror flick that was probably infested with insects and at least one disgruntled ghost, but it was the last place anyone would look for her. Ellie gathered up her baby and the nappy bag, but she hadn't even made it inside when Hardy stepped out of the shadows like a wraith. 

Ellie gasped as he grabbed her arm and practically dragged her and Fred around to a service entrance. They tiptoed up the service stairwell all the way up to the fourth floor. Ellie hoped she hadn’t made a mistake as Hardy keyed into a dark room and ushered her inside. He deadbolted the door behind them and dragged over the desk chair, stuffing it beneath the doorknob.

“That won't keep them out,” she reminded him, shuddering at the memory of how the doorknob and deadbolt had been removed.

“I’ll hear it fall,” he said.

“A split second before they break in.”

“That’s all I need,” he assured her, and Ellie’s knees finally gave out on her. She sat down hard on the edge of the bed and laid Fred down next to her. It was a miracle he’d slept through most of the ordeal. Seeing him so peaceful and unaware, Ellie found it hard to believe that this was actually happening. 

And then she looked at Hardy, and it became real again. 

“You alright?” he asked again.

She shook her head and his hands fluttered in the air between them. 

“Do you want a hug?” he offered, opening his arms to her. 

A strangled sound got trapped in her throat. She wondered at what point she’d hit rock bottom, because surely it couldn’t get any worse than this. Her only source of comfort was coming from someone who was barely human. 

“No, I don’t want a hug!” she snapped. 

“Right, no,” he said. He had the audacity to look crestfallen as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. 

“What is wrong with you?”

“It’s what people do,” he sighed. 

“You don’t,” she reminded him. 

And suddenly, Ellie flashed back to the day they’d burned Jack’s body and how Hardy had awkwardly patted her on the back when she’d turned to him for comfort. He’d been so stiff and uncomfortable, but he’d tried to pretend to be human for her. Maybe he’d been attempting to conceal his identity, but since then he’d come to hers for Christmas Eve and he’d been so tender with Fred. 

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, rising from the bed and pacing away from him. She pressed a hand to her throbbing forehead. “I just - I’m having trouble wrapping my head around all of this. First Danny, then Jack and Joe, and now this.” She took a deep shuddering breath.

“Oh, God, is Tom safe?” she gasped. 

“For now,” Hardy said, and then added, “I don’t think they were interested in you.”

“Not interested?” She found this theory baffling. “Hardy, did you see Fred’s crib?”

“It was a message,” Hardy told her gravely, and his shoulders slumped. “It was a threat intended for me.”

Ellie stared at him and the familiar anger surged through her, but she was too weak and exhausted to endure it. She squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled through her nose. 

“I’m sorry, Miller,” he apologized, “I didn’t realize they’d track me to yours. If I had any inkling that they might, I wouldn’t have gone there.”

Ellie breathed in and out, shifting the anger aside so that she could think more clearly. 

“These are the same vampires who were responsible for turning Nige and our Jane Doe in Broadchurch, the same one you’ve dealt with in the past,” she surmised.

“Possibly,” he hedged.

“Possibly?” she opened her eyes and glared at him. 

“There’s at least four of them,” he sighed, tugging on his earlobe. “They’re trying to make more and I can’t keep up.”

“Bloody hell,” Ellie cursed. “Don’t you have enough evidence by now to bring them in?”

He shook his head. 

“I need to be certain,” he said, clenching and unclenching his fists. 

“I might be able to get SOCO Brian to go through my flat,” she offered. 

“There won’t be anything, you know that,” he argued.

“Who’s in charge of them?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. “I want a name.”

“He went by Lee Ashworth, but I doubt he still goes by that name,” Hardy relented. He pulled out his mobile and scrolled through his photos until he found one of a ruggedly handsome vampire who had been turned in his late thirties. The photograph wasn’t of the best quality, but Ellie memorized every detail it provided. 

Ellie’s finger slipped. The next photo was of a girl laughing with a pretty young woman.

“Is that your daughter?”

Hardy snatched the phone from her.

“No. That’s Pippa Gillespie and Lisa Newbery,” he clarified. 

“Hang on. Where do I know that name?” Ellie wondered, sifting through her memories, all the way back to when she was in the Academy and doing her training. They’d gone through a series of cold cases and had studied one that was such a colossal fuck up that trainees were probably still studying it…

“That’s the Sandbrook case,” she realized. 

“No one can prove that Lee Ashworth killed them, but I know he did, Miller, I’m certain,” Hardy said adamantly. 

“Hardy, that was over twenty years ago,” she sighed, massaging her temple. “Do you honestly think that whoever trashed my flat had something to do with that cold case?”

Hardy shrugged again. 

“I’ve been killing their fledglings; some vampires take it personally.”

“But why would they come to my flat?” she wondered. 

“A message,” Hardy suggested, scratching at his jaw. “You’re under my protection.”

“No, I don’t think they’ve seen me,” she hedged, “You said that they’d have to be face to face with me to notice that I’m Marked…” Hardy nodded and Ellie trailed off, thinking hard. 

“Hardy, what if it wasn’t a threat? What if they’re looking for something that they think you have? Did you have a file on them?” she quizzed him. 

“An unofficial one that I’ve added to over the years,” he acknowledged.

“It’s not digital?”

“No,” Hardy admitted and an idea occurred to her. 

“Where are you staying?” 

Hardy started to answer and then he pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“I’m an idiot,” he lamented, catching onto her train of thought. “Someone rifled through my hotel room last week, I thought it was one of the maids. And Jocelyn mentioned they’ve had two security breaches in the last six months. The official Lee Ashworth file was in the database as well as my file.” Hardy thrust his fingers into his hair, yanking on the strands. “God, I should’ve connected it sooner.” He was clearly distressed, but there was a brightness to his eyes that Ellie didn’t like. 

“Outstanding, Miller, Out- _bloody_ -standing.” He clapped her on the back, hard, as if he’d forgotten his own strength.

“I have to make some calls and do some surveillance,” Hardy told her, but Ellie stepped in front of him before he could leave the room. 

“Where’s the file? I want to see it,” she demanded and the light in his eyes dimmed. 

“I can’t give it to you,” he brushed her off. “It’s private.”

Ellie dove in front of him, blocking his path. Hardy could’ve moved her out of his way, but he didn’t. 

“That murderer turned Nige and destroyed my flat,” she said furiously. “I have two sons who are in danger, Hardy, I can’t afford to respect your privacy. I need that file as soon as possible.”

Hardy scrutinized her for an agonizing moment, and Ellie was reminded of how much more powerful and older he was in that stare. Grudgingly, he took out his phone and tapped on the screen. 

“He might already have it,” Hardy pointed out, “But I’ve sent a link to the digital copy of the official police report to your email along with my I.D. The password’s Bluebells.”

“I want the original,” she insisted, refusing to back down. But Hardy’s patience had run out. He shifted her gently out of his way and removed the chair from the door. 

“I don’t think they followed you, but replace the chair once I close the door and deadbolt it behind me,” he ordered her. “Don’t let anyone in.”

Ellie shoved him out into the hall and locked up behind him. 

*

Hardy called Jocelyn first. As soon as he mentioned the security breach and voiced his suspicions about the identity of the ‘Wilds’, she demanded concrete evidence. Of course, Hardy didn’t have any. Not yet. 

“I _know_ it’s Ashworth.”

“Hardy, I can’t help you,” she said bluntly, “The last time you took a run at Ashworth-”

“This is different,” Hardy cut her off. “Jocelyn,” he went on beseechingly, “There’s a trail of dead bodies along the coastline. They’re killing someone every three weeks and I’m certain Lee Ashworth’s in some way responsible.”

“Get me proof.”

“I need help,” he pleaded with her.

“Hardy, you know there isn’t any,” she reminded him, frustrated, “You’ve been down there for months, and you still haven’t got the ‘Wild’ that Jack was worried about, and don’t even try to pretend that you’re not hiding something about what happened in Broadchurch. I might not have your superior senses, but I can still smell a lie.”

Hardy cursed inwardly. He should’ve known he couldn’t get anything past Jocelyn. 

“Unless you intend to come clean to the Institute, you’re on your own,” Jocelyn said not unkindly. “Hardy, I know you’re under a lot of pressure right now.”

“You have no idea,” he interrupted her, “If I’d been re-born a decade earlier-” 

“And you hadn’t made a complete hash of Sandbrook,” she reminded him sharply. “Not to mention your criminal record,” she added and Hardy pinched the bridge of his nose. “My hands are tied, Hardy,” she sighed, “I want to be on your side, I do, but you already know what Lee Ashworth could do to you if he catches you first.”

Hardy thought about Miller and her wee one holed up in his seedy hotel room, and he felt physically ill at the memory of what they’d been fleeing.

“I’ll get you proof,” he vowed.

“I know now’s not an ideal time,” Jocelyn started hesitantly, “but we need to discuss Tess’s request to rescind-”

“I’ve got _four_ ‘Wilds’ siring fledglings and at least two humans caught in the cross-fire,” Hardy ground out, “Unless you can send me a Wraith or another vampire, Tess is going to have to wait.” 

Hardy rang off and resisted the urge to chuck his mobile into the nearest bin. Miller was counting on him and Ashworth was getting closer with every second Hardy wasted dwelling on Tess and things he couldn’t change. 

*

Unsurprisingly, Ellie didn’t sleep at all that night and Fred woke well before the crack of dawn. She propped Fred in front of the telly, watching some silly children’s show that was truly awful for anyone over the age of two. 

With Fred distracted, Ellie skimmed through the report. The police report like many of her own ‘official’ reports, deliberately left out a lot of information, but Ellie had seen and heard enough in her own experience that she could connect the dots and fill in the gaps. 

Pippa and Lisa had obviously been bitten, but Ellie couldn’t figure out if they’d been turned or exsanguinated. According to Hardy it was an unforgivable crime to turn or feed on anyone under the age of eighteen, and Pippa had only been twelve. Pippa’s corpse had been dragged out of the river, but Lisa’s had never been found. Lee Ashworth had been the prime suspect, but mysteriously the case had collapsed due to the mishandling of evidence and some issues with the two SIOs on the case. 

Ellie was looking through the photos of the crime scene when she came across a photograph of Pippa’s body covered up with a coat. A man in his shirtsleeves was down on all fours next to the body. His wet hair was slicked back from his forehead and he was clean-shaven, but Ellie recognized him immediately. 

She’d suspected it had been personal for Hardy, but she hadn’t realized how personal until she caught a glimpse of his face. His clothes were wet and sticking to his body, but the look of pure anguish was enough evidence for Ellie. Hardy had pulled that girl’s body from the river and had likely been a part of the colossal fuck up that had led to Ashworth walking free. 

After checking that all was well with Tom and Lucy, Ellie spent the day cooped up in the hotel room, struggling to entertain Fred until he wore his fat little legs out chasing a beetle and passed out on the bed. Ellie tried her best to stay awake, but she nodded off flipping between the channels. 

She woke up when Hardy sat down next to her and plucked the remote from her fingers. He shut the telly off and the silence was deafening. He could tell from the way she avoided his eyes that she’d read the file and knew of his involvement. 

“Did they turn Pippa?”

“They tried,” he admitted, “But when you turn children, they’re prone to constant seizures or their hearts burst in their chest. Then they go mad…” He tapered off and Ellie remembered how much difficulty he’d had with this subject when he’d explained to her why her boys were unlikely targets for a fledgling. 

“Children can’t handle the process. It’s an unbearably painful experience for anyone who’s turned, but for children it’s worse. It’s rare that any child survives the first twelve hours, even with a careful and attentive sire, but if they do…” He trailed off again, transported to some past trauma that Ellie never wanted to witness. “It’s awful, Miller. There’s nothing worse than losing a child or not being able to have one, but at that price, it’s not worth it. Nothing is. They never recover.”

They sat there in the silence, staring blankly at their fuzzy reflections in the black TV screen. 

“You pulled her body from the water,” she said at last.

“After killing her and then putting her through that, the coward tried to drown her,” he answered her unspoken question, his voice heavy with all the underlying emotions that came with that tragedy. “He held her head under the water for god only knows how long, before he finally snapped her neck and put her out of her misery.” 

Ellie flinched. Most vampires were terrified of the water, but Jack had managed to overcome that fear only after decades of conditioning himself. A child and new-born fledgling would’ve been petrified. 

“The detective that lost the evidence linking it to Ashworth, was that you?” she queried. 

“No, but it was my mistake to leave him in charge of it. I had a family matter to attend to and I thought I could trust him.” He shook his head, before recounting haltingly, “My partner was a recovering alcoholic, but his sister drowned in a pool when they were children. I should’ve known that he’d have trouble coping with the case, but I never thought he’d relapse…”

“Why did you take the fall for him?” Ellie wondered, puzzled. 

“I had to,” Hardy said. “I didn’t have time to think of the consequences, all I could think about was protecting my daughter, regardless of what it would cost me and all of us...” He leaned back against the headboard and closed his eyes. 

He muttered something that sounded like, “Only seventeen.” Ellie was dreadfully curious about what had happened to his daughter, but Hardy looked so exhausted that she knew that now wasn’t the time to press him on that sore subject. 

“Did you manage to find anything else on Ashworth?”

Hardy shook his head. His clothes were clean so he couldn’t have gotten into any scuffles. He rolled his head to check on Fred, slumbering on the bed next to her. Moments later her baby stirred, letting out a whine. Ellie picked him up, but Fred continued to fuss until Hardy started talking nonsense to him again in that silky voice. Fred quieted, watching him with wide eyes. 

“Do you mind?” she asked, holding Fred out to him. “I need the loo.” 

Hardy stretched out his arms and she gave Fred to him. She took her time in the loo, washing up and changing into her pyjamas. Hardy was cradling a sleepy Fred when she returned. 

Ellie probably wouldn’t ever apologize to Hardy for lashing out at him after Joe’s sentencing or for accusing him of trashing her flat. Not in words anyway. But she laid down next to Hardy, trusting him with her baby. 

Hardy gave her a soft look and Ellie knew she’d been forgiven.

“Bit weird,” she remarked, yawning, “Seeing you with a baby and sharing a bed with you.”

Hardy’s lips twitched, but he didn’t say anything as she shifted to get comfortable.

“Stay on your side and don’t get under the covers,” she grumped at him.

“Go to sleep, Miller,” he sighed, but she swore for a moment he might’ve smiled down at Fred. 

*

It was a bit weird, but in spite of the danger they could be in right now, Hardy felt calmer with Miller asleep next to him and the baby in his lap. A couple of hours ago, he’d turned the muted television back on for Fred, but the youngest Miller was more interested in him. 

Hardy tickled the baby’s belly and Fred’s face broke into another wide gummy smile. The wee bairn couldn’t possibly understand that he was in the arms of a monster, but Hardy thought that some innate instinct would’ve kicked in by now. He was uncomfortably aware that his voice had a soothing effect on Fred, but the wee bairn should’ve at least shied away from his cold hands once he’d lapsed into silence. But the baby seemed to be distinctly lacking those same survival instincts that should’ve screamed at Miller to stay away from him. Hardy wondered if being around Jack had given Miller and ergo Fred the mistaken impression that all vampires were softies under their gruff exterior.

“You’re making me look bad,” he accused the wee one. Fred giggled and blissfully drooled on his shirt.

“’think Freddy’s got bit of a crush on you.”

Hardy started at the sound of her groggy voice, he hadn’t been listening for the minute changes in her breathing and heartrate. She reached out to smooth Fred’s curls off of his forehead.

“This is Uncle Alec,” she cooed at the baby. 

“Never liked Alec,” Hardy complained, wrinkling his nose. But Miller ignored him, grinning widely. 

“ _Alec_. C’mon Freddy. Al- _lec_.”

Hardy was scowling at her, when Fred giggled and shrieked, “A- _wec_!” Miller clapped her hands delightedly and Fred mimicked her. They beamed at him with eerily similar smiles and something fluttered in Hardy’s chest. 

For a moment, the constant ache in his chest lifted, and Hardy felt something warm blossoming in place of his frozen heart. It had been so long since Hardy had felt anything but pain there, that he didn’t recognize the sensation until a hard lump got lodged in his throat. 

He handed Fred over to his Mum as if the poor baby had burned him like a crucifix. 

“Are you alright?” Miller asked, frowning. She sat up, but Hardy was already on his feet. 

“Fine,” he croaked, backing away from the bed until he slammed into the shoddy desk, hard enough to dislodge a screw. 

“Alec.”

“Hardy,” he corrected her automatically, and he felt like a complete knob when her face fell. “I should…” – he motioned toward the window – “…keep watch.”

“A- _wec_!” Fred crowed. Miller shushed him as she took him back to bed with her. 

Fred’s soft snores soon filled the hotel room, but Hardy could feel Miller’s eyes boring holes into the back of his head. It was almost four in the morning when she finally came to him.

“Go back to bed,” he said. 

“Hardy, you’re knackered,” she sighed and offered, “Let me take a turn.”

“I can’t,” Hardy whispered. He turned toward her and let her see a fraction of his fear in his eyes. Miller searched his face for a moment, recognizing just a few of the many, many things he couldn’t tell her. Not out loud anyway. 

“I can’t let you go back to Devon,” he decided, “Not if Ashworth’s gotten your scent.” And _mine_ , he thought, because even if Ashworth hadn’t seen Miller, he’d recognized that Hardy’s scent was all over Miller and wee Fred. Hardy had Marked them to protect them, but now he wondered if Baxter had been right. Maybe they would’ve been safer if he’d left them alone after they’d left Broadchurch.

“It might not have been him,” she stated, but she wasn’t arguing with him. 

“What do we do now?” she wondered, and in that moment her eyes were almost as wide and guileless as her wee bairn’s. She was relying on him to keep her and Fred safe and that scared him almost as much as Ashworth. 

Hardy took her by the arms, but this time she didn’t flinch away from his touch.

“You’ll stay with me,” he said softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get this up so badly there might be typos. Thank you for reading!


	10. A Wall that Stands Between Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie and Hardy return to Broadchurch with lots of baggage and concerns. Ellie creates a wall of evidence and Hardy tries to maintain a wall between them.

The next day Hardy left to do some surveillance and returned with some of Miller’s things. 

Seeing Miller’s slashed mattress and Fred’s smashed crib again lit a raging fire within Hardy’s chest, but the damage also reawakened the old fears and nightmares that haunted him. Hardy wanted to rip Lee Ashworth apart with his bare hands, but there were at least three ‘Wild’ vampires and the Institute’s implicit warning standing in his way. 

If Lee Ashworth or one of the others didn’t finish him off, the Institute would, unless Hardy could prove he had a valid reason to exact revenge upon the powerful vampire. Hardy had already died once, he wasn’t really scared, but he was terrified of what would happen to those under his protection.

Hardy fretted over it all night, but by morning he knew what had to be done. 

They’d have to go back to Broadchurch. 

“I can’t go back to the house, not yet,” Miller balked, grappling with the ghosts of the tragedy that was still too fresh in her mind. Hardy had already sniffed around her former residence and had concluded that the lingering scent of Joe’s guilt was almost as bad as her neighbours. 

The lack of tourists left more options open, but Hardy chose the only one that would ensure them any privacy and protection; a blue bungalow directly on the water, far out from the centre of town, and away from the beaches and trails most people favoured. Miller only agreed to the move because of the closer proximity to Tom and her sister, but her eyes lit up as soon as she stepped out of the car. 

“Didn’t think you could tolerate being this close to the water,” she snarked at him. Hardy ignored her; he was more concerned with how long he could tolerate being in close quarters with a human he’d already bitten. 

“It’s only temporary,” she told him and Hardy assured her she’d hardly ever see him.

Hardy struggled to keep his word, but at least he managed to share his personal casefile on Sandbrook. It might’ve been missing a few pages concerning the aftermath, but Miller didn’t need to know that. 

Less than a week later, the two of them were sprawled on the floor of the tiny sitting room together, pouring over his notes. 

“Who’s this?” Miller pointed to the gap-toothed woman next to Ashworth in the black and white photograph. 

“Claire Ripley.”

Hardy explained that Ashworth hadn’t been a problem until he’d met the woman he’d turn into his Mate. Lieutenant Ashworth had been turned during World War I by a German vampire and had exacted his revenge by exsanguinating hundreds of German soldiers and spying behind enemy lines. Most British vampires had refused to join the war, and the former Lieutenant was awarded medals and a special pardon for his efforts. Hardy wasn’t sure what undercover work Ashworth had done in the Burma Campaign during World War II, but it was enough to cement himself as a favourite among British leaders and the Institute. 

Then Lee Ashworth had met Harold and Claire Ripley. 

According to their neighbours, the Ripley’s had a history of miscarriages and domestic abuse, but in 1954, a mid-wife reported that Claire had delivered another still-born child and had started haemorrhaging. The Ripley’s hadn’t owned a phone, so the mid-wife had gone for help. She’d returned to find Mr. Ripley brutally beaten and exsanguinated. 

Claire and the baby had been missing. 

Hardy didn’t know what happened after that, but Ashworth had resurfaced in the chaotic aftermath of the epidemic in 1981 with a turned and Mated Claire in tow. He’d claimed one of the largest territories in England and had swiftly taken care of anyone who tried to challenge his right to be there. The fact that Ashworth still held a special pardon from the British government and the Institute gave him a rare immunity that few vampires had even before the epidemic wiped out most of the population. 

“But how did no one notice that between 1981 and 1989, twelve children and at least three young women went missing and turned up showing all the signs of a botched turning within a twenty-mile radius of Lee and Claire?” Miller wondered, propping her chin up in her hands. “And those are just the ones that we know about…”

“The epidemic, the riots and the animosity on both sides wiped out most of the vampires and Wraiths that would’ve handled these special cases,” Hardy acknowledged, tapping one of the few autopsies results he’d been able to get his hands on where the M.E. had actually suspected the truth. “Murray and I were one of the few partnerships that survived 1980. After everything that happened, they didn’t have the funding to train more of us.”

“And most humans don’t want to believe that vampires are still out there,” Miller chimed in next to him, paging through another autopsy where the M.E. had painstakingly come up with a report that would’ve appeased her myopic superiors. 

Miller flipped back to the beginning of the file, bringing out another faded photograph of a smiling Pippa with her parents. 

“Perhaps we could talk to the Gillespie’s,” she suggested, but Hardy went rigid. “They don’t know me,” she hedged.

“’s not a good idea,” he said, pointing to the young Cate who was already beginning to show subtle signs of the toll the alcoholism and the tragedy would take on her. “Cate was already an alcoholic before Pippa was taken from her. She was recently moved to a care home for Stage 4 Cirrhosis and early onset dementia.”

“What about Ricky?” Miller relentlessly moved onto Pippa’s father, determined not to meet the same dead-ends that he had. 

“Good luck finding him,” Hardy grunted and pulled out one of the last pages he’d let her see. “He left Cate shortly after Pippa’s death. ‘s not that surprising, most marriages end in a divorce after the loss of a child.”

“And yet, Ricky reunited briefly with Cate in 1992 to file a civil suit against South Mercia police,” Miller murmured, skimming through his notes. She paused to mull something over. Hardy was so caught up in watching the flickers of her brilliant mind at work that he almost missed the question he’d been dreading. 

“Why weren’t you there?”

Hardy felt an echo of the searing pain that had prevented him from attending that hearing and snatched the file away from her. 

“Hardy,” she sighed, getting up onto her knees, “You’re going to have to tell me what’s missing from that file. If you expect me to help you-”

“It’s not relevant to the case,” he growled, “And I don’t remember asking you for help.” Shoving the file into a drawer, he stormed out of the bungalow and didn’t return until dawn. 

Hardy was startled by the sight of the sitting room. While he was out, Miller had dug his file back out to create an impressive wall of evidence. He found her curled up on the floor under the afghan.

Hardy carefully retrieved two scraps of paper that were tucked underneath her cold cup of tea. The first was a copy of Pippa’s obituary; Miller had highlighted the children’s Leukaemia charity that the Gillespie’s had asked for donations to be made to in lieu of flowers. The second was a clipping of one of the last articles that mentioned DI Hardy by name. The reporter had speculated that Hardy had been sleeping with one of his Detective Sergeants, cheating on his wife (Tess Henchard, a renowned surgeon) and had gone home to make amends. The reporter had gotten it all wrong, but the irony of the truth was never lost on Hardy. 

“We’re out of milk and tea,” she mumbled, yawning and wiping at a bit of drool on her lower lip. “And I finished the last of the bread.”

“Have you been at this all night?” Hardy whispered, well aware that Fred was asleep in the room behind them. 

“Mm-hm,” she hummed. Hardy stood there, staring at her. “He trashed my flat,” she rasped. “I can’t stop thinking about what if me and Fred had been there.” 

Her eyes opened and Hardy couldn’t hide his reaction from her. 

“He frightens you,” she stated, sitting up. 

“He’s untouchable,” he murmured and pushed one of her pins deeper into the map tracking Ashworth’s movements on Pippa and Lisa’s last day. 

“Was he the one who turned you?” she asked tentatively. 

Hardy clammed up and the pin he’d been fiddling with tore through the paper to leave a tiny fissure in the wall. 

“Ashworth’s not my sire,” he confessed. The ache in his chest intensified as he left yet another crack in the wall. He kept stabbing at the wall, making minute adjustments to a useless map he’d spent years piecing together. It didn’t fix the pain, until something warm brushed up against him. 

“Alec.”

Hardy froze as Miller gently lowered his wrist.

“You’re damaging the wall,” she told him, inadvertently reminding him of how different he was from her. 

If Hardy had wanted to, he could’ve broken that wall down with a single push, but there was an invisible wall between him and Miller that a vampire couldn’t touch, let alone knock down. With every hour he spent in Miller’s company, Hardy found it harder to remember why he shouldn’t find a way to scale that invisible barrier.

For a moment, Miller’s hand lingered on his wrist and warmth radiated from that innocent touch. Hardy’s skin itched and burned beneath the pads of her fingers and the light callouses that would’ve been unnoticeable to anyone but a vampire already attuned to her. He wished he could’ve blamed it entirely on Miller’s necklace, but the potent mixture of pleasure and pain that came with her touch soothed the festering wound in his chest and awakened something frightening inside of him that he hadn’t felt in decades. 

Not since – 

He wrenched free from her and massaged his wrist as if she’d injured it. 

“You alright?” she asked worriedly. 

“Fine,” he grunted and rubbed at his stinging eyes. 

“When’s the last time you slept?” Miller interrogated him and he glowered at her. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” she sighed, “I can tell you need it.” 

Vampires were inherently nocturnal creatures, but Jack would’ve explained to her that although they conditioned themselves to be diurnal, the daylight and extra noise took a toll on their superior senses if they went too long without sleep. 

“Go lie down for a bit,” she urged him.

“Don’t fuss,” he snapped, bristling. 

“You bit me because you were overtired and starving,” she reminded him.

“A fledgling _harpooned_ me,” he added defensively, but she hugged herself as if she were cold and avoided his eyes. 

Hardy retrieved the afghan from the floor and draped it over her shoulders. Even through the multiple layers of thick fabric he could feel the heat of her and the throbbing of her heartbeat. Hardy had never put much stock in the theory that opposites attract, but he couldn’t help but marvel at the way Miller reacted to him as if there was a magnetic pull between them. Her tiniest shift in movement brought them one step closer to shattering that wall between them. 

His hands tightened convulsively on her shoulders, but as he leaned closer and she turned her head to look at him, the flash of silver at her neck checked him like an electrical shock. 

“Where are you going?” she asked as he backed away from her. 

“Need to go to Devon,” he fibbed.

“Don’t come back in here unless you’ve fed,” she warned him as if he was a child. 

Hardy was tempted to tell her how much older he was than her, but he feared the same disgusted reaction she’d had to Jack’s relationship with a significantly younger human. Shaking these thoughts from his head, Hardy ran his thumb over the scar from his wedding band and willed himself to focus on something other than what might be going on in a certain human heart. 

* 

For the next three weeks, Ellie only saw Hardy in passing. On the rare occasions they did bump into each other, he’d make up some excuse and abruptly leave. During one of these awkward encounters, Hardy had agreed that she ought to return to work. The commute was hardly worth the money, but the change of scenery and interacting with another human being over the age of two was worth it. At least Lucy could mind Fred every now and then, and she’d introduced Ellie to a nanny who occasionally took on Fred in addition to her own charge. 

Ellie had seen Tom only twice since she’d been back in Broadchurch and he’d made it blatantly clear that he had no interest in coming home anytime soon. She’d run into Hardy after one of these awful visits and he’d offered to mind Fred for her. Ellie had let him take Freddy outside for a bit, but she was wary of leaving her son alone with a vampire for long stretches. 

The following morning, Ellie had a bit of a lie-in and found the reason why Fred had allowed her to sleep an extra two hours, sprawled out on the sofa with his eyes closed and his long legs dangling off the arm rest. 

“Freddy,” she hissed, but her son ignored her, toddling up to the edge of the sofa and adding another toy car to the collection on the vampire’s motionless chest. Ellie watched in horror as her son then proceeded to ‘drive’ the car up the slumbering vampire’s neck and onto his face. 

She lunged for her son, but Hardy reacted faster. With a growl, he rose from the sofa in a blur of movement. 

Ellie stopped breathing, because there was _nothing_ she could do. 

Fred shrieked as he was tossed up into the air and caught by a suddenly standing Hardy.

“Gotcha again,” Hardy rumbled and Fred laughed.

Ellie’s heart slammed back into place and she exhaled shakily. Hardy turned at the sound, his eyes fixating on her with a sharpness they hadn’t had a moment earlier. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his eyes darting from her to the window behind her. 

“Nothing,” she lied, forcing a smile. Ellie held out her arms for her baby and he passed Fred off to her. She felt better once she had the warm and reassuring weight of Fred in her arms. “You want brekkie?” she asked her son, but Fred whined and squirmed. 

“I fed him earlier,” Hardy admitted sheepishly, tugging at his earlobe.

Ellie put Fred down and he immediately returned to his precious cars. She went into the kitchenette and stopped dead in her tracks. There was a perfect omelette already prepared for her and a cup of coffee. It wasn’t very often that Ellie thought of Joe fondly, but in that moment, she missed him and their old messy, happy life so much that it hurt. 

“’s probably cold by now,” Hardy said behind her. 

Ellie blinked back tears.

“Don’t be nice to me,” she started.

“There was a ferocious beastie demanding to be fed,” he interrupted her. 

“Hardy…” she tried again, but he took the plate from her and shoved it into the microwave. 

“I miss cooking,” he confessed, leaning back against the fridge as they waited, “It’s weird, I don’t miss the food or eating, just…” He tapered off as Fred ran into the kitchenette with another one of his cars. Fred held out the one that Ellie knew was his current favourite.

“Thanks, Fred,” Hardy said, ruffling her son’s curls. Fred ran off again and Hardy set it down on the counter to remove her food. Famished, Ellie sat down to eat. She didn’t even object when he stuck her coffee in the microwave. 

Hardy held onto her steaming mug for a minute as if he was trying to warm his hands. She motioned to the empty chair across from her with his fork and he hesitantly joined her. 

“You were scared I was going to hurt the baby,” he surmised and she nearly choked on her omelette. 

“I thought you were sleeping,” she admitted, taking a sip of her water. “We had a German Shepherd mix growing up, sweet as a lamb, but Lucy startled him once when he was asleep, and he almost-” She broke off, her face flaming. 

“He almost bit her,” Hardy finished for her, staring at her with that frustratingly blank face. Ellie squirmed in her seat.

“Are you planning on drinking that?” she asked him, glaring at her coffee. Hardy ignored her, studying the place where Ellie assumed Fred must be, judging from the suspicious lack of noise coming from the sitting room. 

“I would _never_ bite Fred.”

“I know,” she snapped.

“Do you?” Hardy wondered, arching a brow and studying her closely. “The younger the child, the harder it is for a vampire to turn them or bite them, they have to override their own instincts. The blood’s _wrong_.”

“Fred and I share DNA. We’ve got the same blood type,” she pointed out, trying to rationalise her fears. She shovelled in the last few bites of her omelette before she stuck her foot even further into her mouth. 

“It doesn’t work like that,” he sighed.

“Then how does it work,” she demanded and he responded with a shrug. “Don’t do that,” she said, stabbing his fork at him, “If we’re going to play house-”

“We’re not playing house,” he argued and Fred chose that exact moment to present Hardy with another one of his toy vehicles: a treasured race car. Ellie put down her fork and waited as Hardy thanked Fred with an awkward pat on the head. Hardy had difficulty meeting her eyes as he set the car down between them and grasped the mug between his hands. 

“Call it whatever you want,” she said, “But we could be living in close quarters until you find out Ashworth’s whereabouts, and you’re rubbish at taking care of yourself.”

“Fred’s completely safe from me and I’ve been more careful,” he defended himself, but Ellie was sceptical. 

“You look like shit,” she noted with mounting concern.

“Haven’t slept in a while,” he admitted, rubbing at his eyelids with his forefinger. 

Ellie hadn’t even considered the fact that the bungalow only had one bed and a sofa that was too small to accommodate Hardy’s height.

“Go lie down on the bed,” she urged him, “I’ll take Fred out for a bit.”

Hardy exhaled heavily and relinquished his white-knuckle grip on her coffee mug. Ellie reached over to take it from him, but he caught her wrist. His fingers were startlingly warm from holding her mug, and yet his touch sent an odd shiver through her. 

“You’re not wearing your necklace,” he observed. 

“I took it off to shower last night,” she recollected. He leaned closer to her and she caught a whiff of his distracting scent. 

His skin was already starting to cool against hers as the pad of his thumb stroked over the inside of her wrist, setting off another pleasant shiver through her. He squeezed her hand and her gaze was snagged by his, like a fly ensnared in amber. A fingertip, cold as ice, ghosted over the bite on her neck.

“Don’t take it off again,” he said chillingly.

“I wanted to give it to Fred or Tom,” she blurted. 

Hardy blinked at her as if this hadn’t even occurred to him. His hand dropped to her shoulder and he gave her some space to breathe again. 

“Not because of you…” she stammered. Not entirely, anyway. 

Hardy crooked a finger under her chin, tipping her gaze back up to meet his. 

“I know you’re upset about Tom and you don’t want to hear this, but he’s safer with Lucy. He’s not even on Ashworth’s radar yet,” he soothed her. 

“What about Fred?” she wondered.

“Too young,” Hardy assured her and tucked a curl behind her ear. “All of the children taken were between nine and seventeen.”

“And all of the young women were at least fifteen years younger than me,” Ellie argued and Hardy abruptly stood up. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he ground out, “Go get the necklace and put it on.”

“After I finish my coffee,” she said just to piss him off. She didn’t have any qualms about wearing the necklace - she _would_ put it on - but she wasn’t about to let him order her about like a trained puppy. Hardy glowered at her, but her fear of him had diminished since he’d explained why he wouldn’t bite Fred. 

Hardy stalked out of the kitchenette. Ellie basked in the sunlight and her temporary victory over a cranky vampire until something slammed against the table. 

Ellie jumped, spilling a bit of her coffee down the front of her pyjama top. Hardy had banged his fist down and his eyes were blazing.

“What the fuck, Hardy!” 

“ _Now_ ,” he pressed between clenched teeth. 

As he lifted his hand, the necklace spilled out of his fingers and into hers. Ellie caught it reflexively, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Hardy’s blistering skin. Slowly, she lifted her head, afraid of the fury she’d find burning in those inhuman eyes. But this was no ordinary fire; Ellie discovered a different sort of pain in those brown eyes that went far beyond the physical damage he’d willingly wreaked on his own palm. 

“Hardy…” she started and reached out to him. 

He recoiled from her, backing up a few steps. She stood up slowly and her eyes filled with tears of empathy. 

“Was it your Mum?” she whispered, but Hardy was only half listening to her. He was trapped within the thrall of a bad memory of losing a loved one in a vampire attack. Another horrific thought occurred to Ellie, one she didn’t want to voice, but her curiosity refused to be leashed. 

“Or was it your daughter?”

Hardy made a noise that was half snarl and half whimper. She took another step toward him and his fangs came out. Ellie hadn’t seen them since the night he’d come to her flat to Mark her and he’d been injured, but Fred hadn’t been in the flat that night.

Ellie could hear Fred babbling to himself, coming closer and closer to where she faced off with a vampire who wasn’t fully present. Whatever had happened to his daughter, Hardy was still living with the trauma. 

“You shouldnae have taken it off,” he growled, his accent thick and incomprehensible coupled with his fangs. He prowled toward her and Fred tripped into the kitchenette. Hardy was momentarily distracted by the movement and Ellie threw herself at the vampire because he was closer. 

“Don’t you dare touch him!” she snarled, smacking him. But Hardy had already snapped out of whatever had taken hold of him at the sight of the baby. 

“Just put the bloody necklace on Miller,” he whinged and grabbed her arm before she could hit him again. Ellie put the stupid necklace back on and ran to see to her son. 

Fred was fine though, alarmingly fine.

“ _Awec_!” he shrieked, clapping his hands.

“Can’t you do something about those fangs,” she admonished him, when her son wouldn’t stop ogling Hardy and bursting into random giggles.

“’m tryin’,” Hardy groused, but he didn’t try hard enough. 

Her son was even more enamoured with Hardy now that he knew he had fangs. Later that week, Fred dragged home a very old Sesame Street book and refused to part with it.

“He can keep it,” the nanny said, frowning and giving Ellie an odd look, “He’s a bit obsessed with the Count Von Count. It’s a bit weird.” Ellie wasn’t even sure the purple vampire puppet was still on Sesame Street, but Fred made her and Hardy read the book to him, over and over again. 

Ellie found Fred’s newfound obsession amusing. Hardy did not. 

“It’s not right,” he kept muttering, every time Fred snuggled up to him, laughed at him, or chose him over his own mother. 

“At least you’ve still got some maternal instincts that kick on occasion,” he remarked one night as they sat together on the sofa after she’d put Fred down. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded. Hardy was quiet for a long moment, but when she continued to pester him, he relented. 

“You’re only scared of me when Fred’s present,” he said softly. “You were more scared of me biting a baby, even though I’ve explained that you’re in more danger than him.”

“You must remember what being a parent is like,” she scoffed, “Surely, it hasn’t been that long…?”

Hardy looked away from her. Even though he was right next to her, Ellie could feel him drifting away to a place where she couldn’t reach him. 

“I’m sorry I brought her up,” she apologized.

“You’re right,” he admitted so softly, she had to strain to hear him. “I’ve faced _monsters_ , but I’ve never been more scared than the day my daughter…” He trailed off and she didn’t think he’d come back from wherever he’d gone in the labyrinth of horrors that held his worst memories. 

“When she was sixteen,” he cleared his throat, “A boy took her out on her first date.”

Ellie held her breath. 

“I didn’t want her dating until she was thirty,” he grumbled and folded his arms over his chest, “But Tess agreed to it. And yet _I_ was the one that stayed up all night waiting for him to bring our girl home.” He was lost in the memory, but Ellie loathed to disturb him. When he spoke again, she actually startled. 

“I called the police. I called every hospital in the area. I even called the boy’s parents and all of her friends. I’d never been so scared…” he recounted solemnly and Ellie braced herself for the horrible tragedy that had shaped him into who he was today. “The boy brought her home at four in the morning. They got a flat tire and the boy didn’t have a spare,” he sighed. “There weren’t any mobile phones back then, they had to walk for miles to the nearest petrol station because _my_ daughter refused to hitch a ride with a stranger.” His lips twitched and he shook his head. 

“I threatened to chop the boy’s little cock off,” he confessed gruffly, “And then I told my daughter she wasn’t allowed to date again. Not until she was thirty-five.” His lower lip quivered and he bit down on it. Ellie wanted to comfort him, but she was scared that any movement might silence the flow of words that desperately needed to come out. 

“She used to talk about it constantly; dating, getting married in a frilly white dress, having a big family, and I…” He broke off and Ellie slid over to his side as he dropped his head into his hands. 

Ellie’s first instinct was to hug him, but ever since Joe’s betrayal and that disastrous Christmas Eve, she had trouble with giving and receiving comfort and affection. She flinched away from even the smallest touches (except when she was soused up to her eyeballs), but Hardy kept trying to hug her anyway. 

Gingerly, Ellie wrapped her arms around him. He sighed and he seemed to shrink in on himself to fill the circle of her arms. Lee Ashworth had been a young and muscular soldier who had flourished on the battlefield. Hardy’s appearance was deceiving, but he’d been older and heartbroken; a former Wraith, a frustrated DI and an anxiety-ridden parent. If Ellie had been a gambler, she would’ve put all her money on Ashworth winning in a fight between the two vampires. And with that depressing realization, she hugged him tighter. 

“ _Don’t_ ,” he said shakily, jerking away from her.

“Is it the necklace?” she wondered, reluctantly releasing him. 

“No,” he sniffed and laid a trembling hand on her shoulder. His thumb brushed over the chain, but his mental turmoil was so great that she doubted he even felt it. 

When their eyes met, Ellie knew that Hardy was under no delusion that he stood a chance against Ashworth. Hardy had told her that Ashworth wasn’t his sire, but Ellie was almost certain that the vampire had had a hand in whatever had happened to Hardy’s daughter. 

“It’s been over a month and Ashworth hasn’t found us yet,” she said, sensing his fears.

“That’s what scares me,” he confessed.

“Maybe the Sandbrook file isn’t that important to him,” she suggested and he gave her a look that held the weight of every extra year he had on her. 

“I hope you’re right, Millah.”

Rising from the sofa, he shifted aside the Sesame Street book and the beloved cars Fred had left on his coat. Hardy seemed so much older and wearier now; Ellie wanted to stop him from leaving the illusion of safety their bungalow provided. She didn’t say anything, but Hardy read it all on her face.

“Don’t wait up for me,” he whispered, looming over her. 

“I’m not worried,” she said with false bravado. 

Hardy kissed the Mark on her brow. Ellie felt the cool imprint of his lips, like frost on a window pane, long after he’d vanished into the night. 

*

Ellie didn’t wait up for him, but she spent at least an hour hunting for the Gillespie’s social media accounts (Ricky didn’t have any, but on Facebook a Cate Gillespie with no profile picture had been tagged in a fundraiser and had reshared a link for the same children’s Leukaemia fund at least fifty times in the few months she’d been active last year). 

And Ellie did worry.

In the morning, Hardy went for a walk with her on the cliffs, pushing Fred’s pram while she finished the 99 he’d bought for her and Fred. That was all it took for people to begin to speculate about the nature of their relationship. Ellie got stares in the Market and people whispered behind their hands. Someone made a nasty remark in the car park, implying that Ellie had slept with her boss, so he’d help her frame her ‘poor’ husband for murder. Ellie brushed them off, but she could only imagine what they’d be saying if they discovered Hardy was a vampire. 

It was a relief to return to work the following day as an anonymous traffic cop in Devon. Ellie was in a foul mood and wrote up a record number of tickets that day. It was raining when she had the satisfaction of pulling over a shiny new pick-up truck, but her exuberance was short-lived. 

The driver gave Ellie a smirk that turned her blood to ice. 

Ellie didn’t need to ask for his driver’s license. He hadn’t aged a day since the faded photograph in Hardy’s file had been taken.

Lee Ashworth had found her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work's been kicking my ass. You might see edits later, I'm that tired. Thanks for reading y'all! Your comments are making this month so much better!


	11. A Warning from the Grave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ellie encounters a ghost from Hardy's past...

The photographs didn’t do the vampire justice; Lee Ashworth exuded masculinity and confidence. Ellie had spent so much time with Jack and Hardy, she’d forgotten what _real_ vampires were supposed to be like. Lee Ashworth’s lethal beauty and otherworldliness made a lasting first impression on her, embodying everything that people assumed about the mythical vampires of the Golden Age.

“Are you going to give me a warning?” Lee asked cheerfully and she forced a smile. 

“Just a verbal one.” 

She backed away from the vehicle before he could get a good look at her face. But his hand shot out to yank her up against the side of the truck. His voice deepened into a velvety purr. 

“Hang on, I think we’ve got a mutual friend.”

Although he didn’t explicitly order her not to move or scream, Ellie felt it in the grip he had on her arm. If she struggled, he’d break her wrist and haul her into the truck through the open window. He’d snap her neck in an instant and bleed her dry. 

And her partner waiting in the car behind them would be next. 

“You must be very special to him,” the vampire murmured, sounding almost surprised. 

Ellie stopped breathing as he brushed a curl from her cheek and traced over one of the marks Hardy had left on her. His gelid touch felt like the glacial kiss of death. Caressing the bite on her neck, Lee clicked his tongue.

“Oh, he’s been _naughty_ too,” he chided and a wicked grin blossomed across his face. 

He was so handsome that Ellie didn’t notice when he abruptly released her wrist. Something akin to annoyance flickered across his gorgeous facial features, but then he smirked and she wondered if she’d imagined it. 

“It’s a shame I’m not hungry, I would’ve loved to take you to dinner, _Ellie_ ,” he purred, “But since I have you here, I want you to pass on a warning to our mutual friend, just a verbal one,” he assured her. 

Ellie barely heard what he told her to pass onto Hardy, she was so focused on breathing in and out. Her heart slowed marginally, but it wasn’t until she saw the truck’s tail lights that she was able to move again.

“What was that all about?” Julie asked her, frowning. 

“Just a warning,” she echoed and turned the car around. Her partner was thrilled when Ellie suggested they knock off early. 

Ellie called Lucy first, bribing her to keep the kids for a long weekend and encouraging her to take them to a hotel in Weymouth she’d been to once with Joe and Tom. Ellie waited until she was on the motorway before she called Hardy.

“Everything all right?” he asked in lieu of a greeting. 

Ellie opened her mouth but no sound came out. Her eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror. 

“Millah?” he prompted her.

“Lee Ashworth gave me a verbal warning.” Her heart started beating harder in her chest and cold sweat dampened her brow. “I don’t remember the exact wording, something about a flower. A rose? No, wait, it was a daisy.”

Hardy made a pained noise on the other end of the line. 

“I’m guessing that means something to you,” she blathered on, glancing at the rear-view mirror again to confirm that there was in fact a vehicle following her. 

She gave him a quick recap of how she’d pulled Lee over and he’d threatened her. She deliberately left out what Lee had said about her being ‘special’ to Hardy, but she told him that he’d seen the bite on her neck. 

“If Lee was smart, he could use that to destroy you without getting his hands dirty. Maybe you should go off the grid for a bit, in case he reaches out to the authorities and has you arrested,” she babbled, keeping one eye on the headlights close behind her. 

“Miller,” Hardy interrupted her, “Are you being followed?”

“I’m not sure,” Ellie admitted. “It doesn’t look like Lee’s truck. I didn’t antagonize him or make any sudden movements, but he knows who I am.” Her voice shook as the black sedan followed her off of the exit. 

“How long do you think you can keep driving?” 

She checked the fuel gauge and her heart plummeted. 

“I’ve got a quarter of a tank,” she estimated, “Maybe three hours?” 

“Do you think you could make it to one of the other two locations I texted you?” he asked anxiously. 

“No,” she said, “Not without stopping.” 

Hardy swore.

“I offered Lucy a lot of money to take the boys on holiday, they should be gone by the time I get there,” Ellie explained. “Hang on.” 

She put her mobile in the cup holder and spun the vehicle around onto the opposite side of the road. Her Satnav was still recalculating as she picked the phone back up. 

“I don’t think it’s Lee,” Ellie surmised as she sped back onto the motorway. “I’m going to try my best to lose them, but if I lead one of them back to Broadchurch…”

“It’ll be dark soon,” Hardy pointed out, “They could run you off the road.”

“They won’t,” she promised, thinking of her children. 

“You bloody well know that there’s only one road into Broadchurch and it goes by the cliffs,” he warned her as she broke the speed limit. “Miller, you have to stay ahead of them and keep an eye on your petrol. If anything changes or if you don’t think you can-”

“I know,” Ellie interrupted him, swallowing past the lump in her throat. She didn’t want to think about what kind of monster could be in the car close behind her, but even if Hardy tried to meet her somewhere, it would be too late. 

“There’s blood in the fridge,” she pointedly reminded him.

“Don’t fuss,” he grunted, but she heard him open the fridge.

“You’d never be able to do this without me,” she sighed.

“You’re right,” Hardy acknowledged, “I can’t do this on my own,” he admitted hoarsely. 

“You don’t have to,” she whispered and tears sprung in her eyes. “I’m gonna solve Sandbrook, and then I’ll help you nail this bastard for Pippa and Lisa’s murders.”

“Just focus on driving,” he told her, his voice thick. 

Ellie glanced up at the rear-view mirror, but dusk had fallen so suddenly that all the headlights behind her blurred. She blinked back tears. 

“Hardy, _if_ something happens to me-”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you,” he cut her off vehemently. “You’re under _my_ protection. You and your boys.”

“What if something happens to you?” she wondered aloud, because if Lee wasn’t in the car behind her…

“Grab the Sandbrook file, if you can, and then go to Maggie Radcliffe. She’ll contact Jocelyn and get you and your boys to a safehouse,” he promised her.

Someone flashed their headlights behind her and Ellie changed lanes to let them pass. It was harder to see in the dark, but she’d slowed down while she was talking to Hardy. She needed to give her full attention to the road, or as much as she could afford to right now. 

“I have to go,” she told him. 

“Ellie,” he said her name and more tears welled up in her eyes. “Please, be careful.”

“Don’t get soppy,” she admonished him as the taillights in front of her blurred together into a scarlet mirage. “I’ll see you in two hours,” she vowed.

“Don’t be late.” He hung up on her. 

Ellie let herself cry for a moment, and then she focused on the road. It had been years since she’d done her training at the Academy up north, but Ellie had been bloody good at the driving course they’d encouraged everyone to take at the time. She looped back a few times, managing to evade her tail and the worst traffic, but she couldn’t stay off the motorway for long or risk getting petrol. Besides, Hardy would start having kittens if he didn’t see her in precisely two hours from the time they’d rang off. 

When she reached the main road it was dark, too dark for Ellie to keep her headlights off for very long. Ellie didn’t see any lights behind her, but vampires could see much better than humans in the dark. Fortunately, the rain had stopped and Ellie knew the road well enough that she could probably drive it with her eyes closed. 

Her petrol tank was almost on empty when she reached their blue bungalow, but Ellie considered it a win when no one pulled in behind her. Hopping out of the car, she dashed into the house and locked the door behind her. 

“Were you followed?” 

Ellie startled as Hardy spun her around. 

“I think I lost them before I hit the main road,” she said hesitantly, “But they could’ve been driving without their headlights.”

Hardy reached over and unlocked the door. He pushed it open a crack and stood very still, listening. Ellie heard the water lapping up against the concrete ledge in front of their bungalow. In the distance a dog barked, and the sea breeze rustled through the shrivelled potted plant a previous occupant had left behind. It was deceptively peaceful, but Hardy was on edge. 

“Are they afraid of you?” she wondered. 

“I guess we’ll find out,” he replied dryly. 

The seconds stretched into minutes, but Hardy didn't move from the doorway. Ellie dug out a granola bar from her bag and ripped it open. Hardy glared daggers at her.

“Am I too rustly?” She rolled her eyes and shoved half the bar into her mouth before he took it away from her. “I could go back to mine or Lucy’s,” she volunteered between bites. 

“No.” He shook his head. “It’s too far and I’d rather finish this tonight.”

“Brilliant,” she deadpanned, “You're using me as bait.”

Hardy let the door slam shut and walked into the kitchenette.

“They might not be bloodthirsty fledglings,” he said, rifling through one of the drawers, “But if they're hungry, they're not going to stop until you're dead.”

He pulled out a kitchen knife and tested the blade on his fingertip. Licking away the bubble of blood, he gazed out through the window over the sink.

“Do you trust me, Miller?” 

“Do I have a choice?” she shot back, hyper aware of the last time she'd trusted him with her life. 

“Do you remember what the car looked like?” he asked, inching toward her and the door.

“I think so.”

“Good.” Hardy took a deep breath he didn't actually need. “Look for the vehicle on the road across the water and slash the tires,” he instructed her.

“They’re here?” She hadn’t heard the car pull in. “Is it Lee?” She peeked out the window, but Hardy spun her back around. 

“They’re blasting white static from the radio and the bastard’s wearing garlic to mask their scent from me,” he hissed. “I’m practically blind.”

The hair on the nape of her neck prickled and the last bite of her granola bar turned to ash on her tongue. Ellie took the knife from him and their fingers brushed. Hardy's hand was shaking slightly; he was scared of whoever was coming for her. She'd witnessed Hardy fight Nige; it hadn’t exactly been a victory for him. Meeting Lee had only cemented her belief that Hardy wouldn’t stand much of a chance against him.

There was one way she could possibly level the playing field, but it was risky and it could easily backfire on them. 

“I’ll be right behind you,” he promised, cupping her cheek as if it might be the last time. “Whatever you do, don't look back at me,” he whispered and nudged her toward the door. “Go.”

The neighbour’s wind chimes tinkled as she walked along the waterfront. She could feel the prickly foreign gaze on her from the shadows, but they must've sensed Hardy behind her and were weighing their options. 

Ellie felt like Orpheus climbing out of Hell and trusting that Eurydice was behind her. As long as she didn't look back, as long as she trusted Hardy to follow, Hell’s monsters couldn't get them. But she wasn't Orpheus, and her faith in the world had been shaken the day she met Hardy. Ellie knew, they both knew, that if the vampire didn't strike tonight, they'd come back for her, maybe when she was with her boys. Ellie was terrified, but she had to put Tom and Fred’s safety before her own.

Ellie didn't look back as she approached the black sedan. She was looking ahead as she slashed the front two tires in rapid succession. Ellie was about to stab the knife into the third tire when she heard them behind her. 

She whipped around with her knife raised, but Hardy put himself between her and the stocky male. She was almost crushed between Hardy’s back and the side of the car, but she could see the scruffy blonde vampire approaching them. Like Hardy and Jack, he looked disappointingly human with none of the rugged beauty that Ashworth had been blessed with. 

“Ricky,” Hardy greeted him. Ellie thought there was something vaguely familiar about the vampire.

“I don’t believe this,” Ricky said with a shake of his head, “I heard rumours, but I had to come and see for myself. You’re a bloody hypocrite, DI Hardy.”

“You’re one to talk,” Hardy retorted. “What kind of father sells their own daughter to a vampire?” 

Ricky grimaced. Suddenly, Ellie realized why Ricky was so familiar. He’d been in the Sandbrook file: he was Pippa Gillespie’s father. 

“It wasn’t supposed to be like that,” Ricky defended himself. “I didn’t know that it couldn’t be done to children. Lee and Claire didn’t mention that bit.”

“Was it Leukaemia?”

Hardy went rigid at the sound of her voice. Ricky gaped at her as if he’d forgotten all about her. 

“How did you know?” Ricky wondered. 

Ellie shoved at Hardy’s shoulder, using the motion to discreetly slip her phone out of her pocket and start recording. Hardy budged enough to allow her to show her face to Ricky. 

“I noticed in the autopsy and toxicology reports, Pippa had red spots on her skin, swollen lymph nodes, and an excess of white blood cells. I know it was post-mortem, but I read in the obituary that you and Cate wanted donations made to a specific children’s Leukaemia fund in lieu of flowers, and the only time Cate ever posts on Facebook is to share fundraisers for that same charity…” She tapered off as Ricky stared at her with an unreadable expression. 

“I’m sorry, Ricky,” Ellie said sympathetically, “It must’ve been hard, with her being only twelve and knowing that there was nothing you could do.” She couldn’t even imagine how she would’ve reacted if Tom or Fred had been diagnosed with Leukaemia. “I can’t say I would’ve done the same thing in your position, but I’ve met Lee and I know he can be… _persuasive_.” 

Ricky’s shoulders slumped.

“Claire promised Lee would turn Pippa, and when everything blew over, she’d turn me so we could all be together. Cate was already buried in a bottle, my daughter was all I had left,” he explained, his voice breaking over the tragic memories. “Pippa didn’t deserve to die that young. I gave them the money they asked for, I had no reason to think that it wouldn’t work.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this twenty-three years ago?” Hardy snapped. “We could’ve helped you, Ricky.”

“You were _human_ ,” Ricky scoffed. 

“I used to be a Wraith,” Hardy reminded him, fuming. “If you’d just told me the bloody truth, I could’ve reached out to someone who could’ve handled Ashworth.”

“I know you would’ve tried, Hardy. In retrospect you were probably the only one who wanted justice for Pippa,” Ricky confessed remorsefully. “But it’s too late now, mistakes were made, and you proved to be as weak as the rest of us.”

“You owe me the truth,” Hardy persisted. “I lost my life to that case too. You owe me, Ricky.”

“It’s not going to make this any easier,” Ricky sighed, but he relented. “Claire gave Pippa a sedative and then Lee suffocated her with a pillow. She didn’t feel a thing, but then it went wrong…” He trailed off and guiltily turned to Ellie. “They wanted to burn her, but I couldn’t let them do that, so I took her down to the river.”

“You stupid, _stupid_ man,” Hardy hissed. Ellie didn’t need to be a vampire to understood how awful that would’ve been for poor Pippa. “What is _wrong_ with you?” he snarled. “Did you not do any research?”

A bloody tear streaked down Ricky’s cheek. 

“She always loved the water, I thought it’d be fitting. I didn’t want Lee or Claire to be the last one who held her. It had to be me.” Judging from the pain in his eyes, Ricky was already serving a life sentence for what he’d done to his own daughter, but Ellie had more questions. 

“What happened to Lisa?” she asked and he rubbed away the tear. 

“What do you think happened?” he retorted bitterly. “She walked in on us and threatened to go to the police.”

“Where’s her body?” Hardy demanded. 

“Over there,” Ricky answered, motioning toward the water. 

Both Hardy and Ellie turned to look and Ricky struck. Hardy pushed her out of the way and Ricky slammed into the sedan’s passenger door, leaving a sizable dent in the exterior and totalling the car.

“That was _new_!” Ricky growled, but Hardy had collared Ellie and dumped her in the river. 

Ellie hung onto the knife as she sank into the icy water. It was freezing and she wasn’t in a wetsuit; she wouldn’t be able to stay in there forever. She kicked off her shoes and stayed under for as long as she could, but the current brought her to where the vampires were now fighting. They were moving too fast for her to gage who was winning, but judging from the wrecked car, Ricky was heavier and likely stronger than Hardy.

She’d have to intervene. 

Ellie latched onto the embankment, sliced open her left palm and smeared her blood over every available surface. She made another shallow laceration on her forearm and left an irresistible trail for a vampire. Then she hoisted herself out of the water. 

“ _Oi_! Ricky!” she yelled and broke into a run.

Ricky caught her and Ellie jammed the knife into whatever part of his body she could reach. The knife wounds only made the vampire angrier, but it gave Hardy time to seize Ricky from behind. 

Hardy swiftly knocked Ricky’s legs out from underneath him and somehow brought the heavier man to his knees. He got on top of Ricky and shoved his head into the river. Ricky spasmed underneath him, but Hardy didn’t let up as the minutes ticked past. 

Shivering, Ellie looked away. 

Finally, Hardy wrenched Ricky’s head from the water, snarling in his ear.

“This is what you did to her. This is what you did to your own daughter.”

Hardy submerged Ricky’s head under the water again. Ricky was bucking and thrashing so wildly he should’ve been able to throw Hardy off of him, but Hardy was hanging onto him with a sort of strength that went beyond their supernatural abilities. With his blood smeared-face and his fangs elongated, Ellie was almost frightened of him. His eyes were bright with a bestial rage and there was a cruelty about this execution that had been absent from Nige’s. 

He was _purposefully_ dragging the torture out. 

All of this had something to do with Hardy’s daughter, Ellie was certain of it. Whatever was missing from the file was the connection between the Sandbrook case and the tragedy that had forced Hardy to abandon his search for justice. 

“Hardy,” she called to him. 

A woman bundled up in a peacoat was walking toward them, but Hardy was fixated on Ricky.

“Hardy!” she snapped as he dragged Ricky’s wet head up again. 

“S-stop,” Ricky stammered, shivering so hard that his teeth were chattering. “P-p- _please_ ,” he moaned, begging for mercy. “I’m s-s-sorry.” 

“No, you’re not,” Hardy spat and pushed his head under again. 

“Either let him go or end it.” She gave Hardy an ultimatum as the woman came within earshot. But Hardy was beyond hearing. Ellie reached down and seized a handful of Hardy’s Mackintosh. He froze as Ricky gasped for the air his lungs shouldn’t have needed anymore. 

“Now. Do it _now_ ,” she ordered him.

Hardy snapped Ricky’s neck and dumped his body into the river like rubbish. He knelt on the gravel, glaring into the murky water. He’d obeyed her and had saved her life again, but Ellie barely recognized the vampire who had comforted her after Jack had died and had whispered an apology to Nige before he’d snapped his neck.

“You alight?” she asked him. 

Hardy stood up unsteadily. Ellie reached out for him, and he snarled at her, baring his fangs. 

“Okay.” She backed away slowly with her hands aloft. “Okay, I’ll just…”

“Go on,” he barked, dragging a shaking hand over his face, “Go.” He waved her off and strode back to the bungalow. 

The fact that he needed space from her was abundantly clear. Ellie was sopping wet and cold, but she was a bit scared of how Hardy might react if she followed him inside. She walked briskly along the opposite bank of the river, rubbing her arms to get the blood flowing again. The adrenaline was still vibrating through her as if she’d had too much caffeine on an empty stomach. 

“Oh, god, are you alright?” 

The young woman in the peacoat had followed Ellie and was now looking her over with growing concern. 

“Fine. ’m fine,” she reassured the stranger. 

“You’re bleeding,” the woman fussed, reaching for Ellie’s shredded sleeve. Although being in the water had slowed the flow of blood, her palm and her arm were streaked with lines and patches of dried and fresh blood. She was feeling a bit woozy too.

“C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up. My place isn’t far.” The young woman steered Ellie away from the river, but Ellie’s balance was off. She fell against the skinnier woman and the stranger propped her up. 

“You’re alright,” the woman soothed her, “We’re almost there.”

Ellie lifted her head as the kind stranger peeled a few strands of wet hair from her face. Her breath caught as the woman examined her. The stranger was lovelier than anyone Ellie had ever seen, and there was something disturbingly familiar about her too. Ellie closed her eyes, blaming her daft observations on the blood loss and possible signs of hypothermia, but the woman’s hands were ice cold on her face. 

Ellie jerked back from her.

“Sorry,” the nice woman apologized, “Didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m Louise, by the way.” She removed her fashionable scarf and offered it to her. “Wrap that around the wound.”

“I don’t want to ruin it,” Ellie mumbled as the woman waited for her to strip off her ruined coat to attend to her arm. She felt even sillier as Louise led her further from the water and toward a neat row of glowing homes. She was being paranoid. 

“Don’t worry about it, dear,” Louise said dismissively and laid a hand on her arm. “My car’s over here.”

Ellie stopped walking and dropped her coat. She was soaking wet and so bloody cold that she probably would’ve followed Louise into any one of those cosy homes, but Ellie balked at the prospect of getting into a car. She was stumbling toward the river before she was even aware that her feet had moved. 

“Thanks, but I’ll be fine,” Ellie fibbed, tripping over the end of the scarf. Louise’s arm shot out to prevent her from falling. 

“Ellie,” she said gently, “You need medical attention.”

Ellie blinked and forced herself to focus, really focus on the woman’s gorgeous face. Broadchurch was a small town; Ellie Miller had become a household name now, thanks to her bastard husband, but when she tried to look past Louise’s stunning beauty, her posh clothes and her fancy shoes…

_Oh_. Oh, _fuck_.

Ellie gagged and clapped a palm over her mouth.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” she choked out.

‘Louise’ instinctively let go of her to give her some space and Ellie ran like hell for the water.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to split the chapter, sorry, next update should be sooner. Thanks y'all for reading, your comments made my holiday brighter!


	12. A River that Leads into Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Ellie fights for her life, Hardy battles his demons.

Hardy frantically tried to wash the blood from his hands. Ricky had landed twice as many blows than he’d managed before Miller’s brilliant distraction, but Hardy had tortured him. Even if there wasn’t any physical evidence of the kill, Hardy always washed his hands after he took someone’s life, as if he needed another reminder of all the blood staining them. 

His fangs had sliced open his lower lip and blood had dribbled down his chin. Cupping his hands together, he splashed some water on his face and avoided his reflection. He grabbed a towel and he got a whiff of Miller’s scent. 

His head was throbbing in tandem with the echo of her beating heart. 

Miller had cut herself to draw Ricky away from him, but Hardy had been enthralled by her blood too. He wished he could blame his rage entirely on Ricky, because he’d been the catalyst; the one who had set in motion the disaster that had taken Hardy’s life and his heart. Ricky was ultimately the reason why Hardy was salivating over Miller’s blood. If it hadn’t been for Ricky’s stupidity, Hardy would still be human and he never would’ve met Ellie Miller.

Miller had been so clever, picking up on Pippa’s tragic Leukaemia prognosis. After finding out the truth, Hardy _despised_ Ricky, but he understood him too. 

Ricky had given him plenty else to mull over, but he’d confirmed one very pressing concern Hardy had for the last few months. 

“Lulu,” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I should’ve known.”

Hardy played back the moment before Ricky had attacked, and then he fast-forwarded to when Miller had touched him and had ordered him to stop. She’d been alarmed by his reckless rage, but she’d been _worried_ too.

Hardy was out the door before he heard Miller’s scream. 

*

Ellie had nearly made it to the water when the vampire seized her. In spite of her posh clothes and her dainty figure, ‘Louise’ was _strong_. Ellie was shivering and she was exhausted; she wouldn’t be able to fight her way free, so she went limp in the vampire’s arms. 

“That’s it,” Louise murmured soothingly, “Let’s get you back to the car, dear.”

Ellie didn’t understand why she was still breathing. Louise should’ve already killed her and bled her dry, but she’d been almost as careful and gentle with Ellie as Hardy had been when he’d fed on her. 

“What do you want?” Ellie exaggerated her tired slur, flopping in Louise’s arms in such a way that it hindered their walk to Louise’s car.

“I like you, Ellie,” she said bluntly. “You’re smart and you’re kind. I don’t want to kill you.”

“Tha’s good,” Ellie slurred, patting Louise’s arm and discretely reaching for the chain around her neck. “I like you too,” she lied.

“I want to give you a gift,” Louise declared. 

Ellie was pleased until she realized what sort of ‘gift’ the vampire intended to bestow upon her. It was a gift that lasted an eternity.

“You’ll thank me later,” the vampire promised, tipping Ellie’s face up to meet hers. “It won’t hurt,” she assured her, misinterpreting the clawing motion Ellie was making at her throat. 

“I’ll make it good for you, I’m not a heartless monster like Hardy,” Louise told her and the fangs finally came out. 

Ellie shuddered and hurriedly tore at her sodden layers of clothing. 

“I’m sorry about this,” the vampire apologized, stroking Ellie’s cheek. 

“Me too,” Ellie said and shoved the St. Mark’s medal and the Celtic Cross into Louise’s pretty face.

*

“You _bitch_!” 

Hardy stopped short at the sight before him. There was a ghost standing on the embankment, Hardy recognized her from his nightmares, but her face was masked in blistering boils and carved up by the feral rage that only a vampire could unleash.

“Ungrateful cunt,” the vampire snarled at the bubbling water yards away from her. Seconds later Miller resurfaced in the bubbles, gasping for air. The vampire kept yelling at her, seemingly oblivious to Hardy’s presence. 

“I was offering you a chance to live. Do you have any idea how powerful Ashworth is? He’s not going to stop until you and your loved ones are dead.”

“I don’t want to be like you,” Miller spat. “I’d rather die.”

“You don’t have to though,” the vampire tried to reason with her, “You could help me protect them.” Her voice changed subtly as she went on enticingly, “I know you, DS Miller, you want to rid the world of rapists, abusers and murderers as much as I do. You could help me protect not just your children, but all those who need it.”

“I don’t want to turn.” Miller coughed up some more water. Hardy crept along the tarmac as she wearily treaded water between them and tried to negotiate with the vampire. 

“Louise, I know you’re scared of Lee, but Hardy can help you-

‘Louise’ laughed derisively as Hardy ducked behind Ricky’s wrecked sedan.

“Alec Hardy’s executed and locked up _hundreds_ of innocent vampires and gotten _dozens_ of humans killed in the crossfire,” she sneered. “He murdered my Mate in cold blood.”

“That’s not true,” Hardy defended himself, joining her on the other side of the river. “He was going to kill a young woman. I didn’t have a choice.”

“We _always_ have a choice,” she said fervently. “I never kill anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”

“Except for Jonathan,” he argued and she clammed up.

“He _loved_ me,” she insisted.

“Yes, he did love _Lulu_ ,” Hardy conceded, edging closer. “But I think we both know that Jonathan didn’t understand what he was agreeing to when you asked him if he wanted to be with you forever.” The vampire’s ire, her guilt, and her loneliness burned in her eyes and Hardy felt her emotions as acutely as if they were his own. 

“How can you live with what you’ve done?” she asked him harshly, but the desperation was back in her eyes. “How do you sleep at night?”

“Who says I sleep?” Hardy said, moving closer. “I’ve had nightmares since the day you and Pippa disappeared,” he confessed, “Lisa, I owe you an apology.”

“I don’t want your apology,” Lisa scorned him. The blisters were already fading from her face, revealing an even lovelier young woman, forever frozen at the age of nineteen.

“I’m sorry about Jonathan too,” he apologized. 

Lisa Newbury looked so lost and forlorn that he wanted to apologize for not coming to help her sooner. He’d suspected Lisa had been turned when he’d first seen Pippa’s body; he should’ve fought harder to get someone to follow up when he’d resigned. 

“Let me take you to the Institute,” he urged her. 

“They’ll execute me,” she said, but she sounded resigned to her fate. 

“I won’t let them,” he vowed and she gazed up at him with those heart-breaking eyes. 

Hardy thought he might’ve convinced her, and then something splashed in the water behind them. A dripping Miller dragged herself up onto the embankment and Hardy didn’t react fast enough. Lisa had captured Miller before she was even fully out of the water. 

“I’m sorry, Hardy, I really am,” Lisa apologized to him as she hauled Miller up against her, “But Lee won’t let her live much longer unless I-”

“ _No_!” Hardy and Miller exclaimed at the same time. Hardy took a run at her, but Lisa darted backwards, maintaining a six feet distance between them. 

One wrong move could get Miller killed. 

“It’ll be better this way, trust me,” Lisa went on, blinded by the twisted honour code she’d chosen to live by under the cruel circumstances of her turning. “You can be together forever.”

“NO!” Miller cried out and Hardy’s fangs tore through his lip. 

“I don’t want to break your neck, Lisa, but I will,” Hardy growled as they inched down the embankment toward the outlet into the sea. “If you hurt her-”

“It won’t hurt,” Lisa assured him. “You won’t be lonely anymore and she’ll be _safe_.”

For a split second, Hardy could almost imagine it; the two of them happily tangled up in the sheets together; Miller had a Mating Mark and a slightly fanged smile; the sheet fell away from her unblemished skin that didn’t bruise or burn or scar whenever he touched her or-

“ _Stop_!” Lisa’s outraged howl shattered the illusion. 

Miller had tipped backwards into the water and incredibly, she’d managed to take Lisa with her. 

The vampire flailed and scrabbled at the muddy bank, but her fear of the water was more potent than Hardy’s. Her wide fearful eyes rattled him to the core; with a sinking heart he realized that Lisa had witnessed Pippa’s horrific drowning.

“Grab my hand.” Hardy held out his hand to her, but she was too scared to let go of the bank that was sliding out from under her nails. The wind and the strengthening current were already sweeping Miller and Lisa toward the outlet into the sea. 

Miller made the mistake of trying to detach herself from Lisa, and the vampire clung to her like a life raft. If Lisa wasn’t careful, she was going to drown Miller and herself. 

“Let her go, Lisa,” Hardy pleaded with her, but Lisa wasn’t listening to him anymore as a gust of wind drove them away from him. 

Miller tried to swim with the current, but Lisa was weighing her down. Poor Miller had to be freezing and she was already tiring again; Hardy didn’t know how much longer she could last in the cold water. He stood there on dry land, paralyzed and helpless, as Lisa pushed Miller’s head under the water.

The vampire’s inhuman scream was swallowed up as Miller’s body brought her down like an anchor. 

The next minute was one of the longest in Hardy’s life, but when Miller finally resurfaced, he was already poised to jump. 

“Hardy!” she yelped and something dragged her under again. Thirty seconds later, she was back again, spitting up water and gasping, “She’s stuck. Hardy, do something you useless-” Her head dipped below again, and it was another minute before she came up, coughing. 

“I need help, fuckwitted knob!” she yelled at him before she sank back under. “ _Hardy_!” Her cry turned into a frightening gurgling. 

He took a running leap just as Lisa’s head surfaced and Miller’s went under, perhaps never to resurface again. 

Hardy landed on top of Lisa. 

All he needed was a moment to get his fingers around the vampire’s slender neck. 

“I’m so sorry, Lisa,” he whispered.

A sickening crack of her neck, and then Lisa was gone.

Miller came up cursing him and it was like music to his ears. Hardy’s relief was so immense that he let the water take him. 

The sea swallowed him, dragging him down, down, _down_ as the weight of his guilt brought him to the coldest, darkest depths of the ocean. 

Somewhere far above him, Miller swam out of view. 

The underworld rippled and swayed around him. 

Hardy closed his eyes as he sank deeper and deeper into the bowels of hell.

*

Hardy opened his eyes. 

He was back in the shabby house he’d grown up in and Mum was kneeling down in front of him. A cloud of flowery perfume enveloped him as she unclasped the Celtic cross from around her neck and transferred it to his. The cross was a weight too heavy for young Alec to bear, but he tried to be brave for Mum. 

“Don’t take this off and God will keep you safe, Alec,” Mum told him as her eyes filled with tears. She hugged him close and whispered in his ear. “Remember my darling, God will put you in the right place, even if you don’t know it at the time.” 

It was the last thing she ever said to him before he got into the old icebox and she dumped a bucket of holy water on him. Nine-year-old Alec had been small enough to fit inside curled up. Mum shut the lid on him and locked him in with a rusty padlock. 

She saved his life at the expense of her own. 

He heard her screams as she died, and then he heard the Wraith that had been tracking the vampire die too. 

The vampire came sniffing around the box, but another stronger vampire arrived to challenge him.

The victor knocked the consecrated padlock off with a hammer and peered in at Alec with curious but warm dark eyes.

“C’mon out lad,” the vampire said soothingly, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“ _No_.”

The vampire blinked at him as if it had been a very, _very_ long time since anyone had told him no. After several failed attempts, the vampire – Alistair Murray – gave up on coaxing him out of the box. 

“Fine.” 

Murray dropped the lid. Alec was trapped inside the suffocating confines of the ice box that seemed to shrink around him as his mother’s death finally hit and the silent tears started. 

His salty tears filled the box along with the holy water. The holy water pooling at the base of the box was suddenly sloshing around him. His feet and legs were swallowed up, his torso and chest were next, and the water kept rising and rising until he could barely breathe. 

Hardy hollered and banged against the lid of the box, but Murray either didn’t hear him or he didn’t care.

Outside he could hear Mum screaming again. 

And then it wasn’t his Mum anymore. 

His daughter’s high-pitched scream eviscerated him. Hardy fought wildly against the rising tide, even though there was nothing he could do to prevent something that had already happened.

“Help! _Daisy! HELP_! SOMEONE HELP HER!” Hardy cried as the water filled the last inch of the ice box. 

The salty water inundated his lungs and the screams faded away along with everything else. 

The box burst open and Hardy sank deeper and deeper into the fathomless sea. 

*

Ellie breached the surface and took a greedy gulp of fresh air. The bank was within her sights and the wind was dying down. Good thing too, because although Ellie was a decent swimmer, she was in danger of being taken out by a more potent killer than a vampire: hypothermia. 

“Bloody vampires,” she cursed and scanned all sides of the river. Amazingly, no one had come out to investigate or call the police. 

“Three vampires and a wrecked car and no one bloody cares. But I go for a bleeding _walk_ and twenty different people report on it,” she grumbled and swam for the closest embankment. “If there’s another vampire waiting for me, they can sod off because I’m freezing.”

Ellie swam up into a tangled mess of reeds and her feet touched the bottom. She lay there, half in and half out of the water and so shattered as the shallows sloshed and lapped against her. 

A flash of movement caught her eye and she jumped, before recognizing Lisa’s scarf. The expensive silk had been ruined and torn by the water and the reeds. Ellie closed her eyes and tried not to think of what Lisa had been through, and what Hardy might’ve been forced to do because of her. 

“Hardy,” she whispered. 

Ellie hadn’t been able to breathe and those last thirty seconds had been a blur, but she thought Hardy had finally jumped in to save her. Lisa had let go of her, but Ellie hadn’t wanted to see what had become of her. 

And now Hardy was missing. 

Vampires had a paralyzing fear of the water, because it was so pure and they were unnatural beings infected by a disease with no known origin or cure. Jack had been so confident on the water that Ellie had never thought to ask if they could drown. 

But if vampires could drown from panic and fear alone, then Hardy was a prime candidate.

“I’m gonna kill him myself if he’s brooding down there.”

Ellie dove back into the water. 

Luckily the gentler wind, the current and the tides were working in her favour. The same tide that had brought her and Lisa’s scarf to the reeds had swept up Hardy too. Ellie found him tangled up in some swaying pondweed underwater. It took her at least two attempts to untangle him from the leafy mess and it took her even longer to drag him up to the surface. He was heavier than he looked, but her body’s natural buoyancy helped while it seemed to be working against his. Ellie was trembling and nearly numb by the time she dragged him through the reeds. 

She had a daft thought that he might reanimate when they were back on land, but Hardy was motionless and a shade of white she didn’t know existed. Ellie had never been more aware that he was technically already ‘dead’. 

She tried shaking him, slapping him, yelling at him and threatening him. 

She even started CPR, but when Hardy didn’t respond, she realized that she didn’t know if it would work on him. 

He was as cold as death. 

Fear crawled up her spine, icier than the depths of the river. The fist that closed around her heart was worse than the grasp of hypothermia, and almost as terrible as the moment when Lisa had shoved her under the water and she thought she’d never see her children again.

Ellie ran back to the nearby bungalow to retrieve the duvet and as many blankets and towels as she could carry. By the time she’d returned, Hardy’s skin was tinged blue. Whatever was happening to him, Ellie was running out of time. 

Or it was already too late. 

“C’mon!” she cried and smacked his chest. “Come _on_!” she beat his chest with her fists, barely noticing the bruises that formed on her knuckles. 

It was like hitting a brick wall. 

She tried rolling him over and struck his back. She even tried the Heimlich manoeuvre. Then she flipped him back over and tried to reach whatever was left of his heart. 

“Don’t leave me, Hardy. Please, don’t leave me.” 

Ellie was in tears. She was shaking so violently from the stifled sobs and the hypothermia setting in; but it was the fear of losing him that kept her going with a reserve of strength she hadn’t even realized she had left.

“Come back to me, Alec,” she begged him. 

*

Hardy opened his eyes again.

An endless sea of white undulated before him. 

It was snowing again, but now he was in Scotland. 

His breath fogged in the air as he leaned on his shovel. He was clammy and sweating profusely. In the two years since the Sandbrook case had collapsed, he’d grown accustomed to shortness of breath, the dizzy spells and the pain in his chest, but tonight’s nausea was a new symptom that Hardy chalked up to a side effect of the latest medication they’d put him on for his arrythmia. His arms were heavy and he hurt all over, but he’d spent the last fifteen minutes shovelling out the chopped wood for the fireplace. 

The radiator was broken again, but Hardy couldn’t risk calling anyone out to fix it. Not after the last time someone had caught a glimpse of what he was hiding in the cabin behind him. 

Another wave of nausea swept over him and he let go of the shovel. Falling to his knees, he got sick in the snow. 

A sharp stabbing pain shot through his chest, squeezing his weak heart and robbing the air from his lungs. The chilling ivory landscape blurred as he collapsed, entirely at the mercy of Death. 

“God, don’t do this to me,” Hardy gasped, clutching at his chest. “Not now.”

“Are you alright?” 

A frowning angel swam in and out of focus. Hardy felt his heart slam against his ribcage. The white barren landscape was slipping and sliding out from underneath him as the angel laid a cool hand on his shoulder.

“Get away from me,” he croaked, but it was too late. 

Something struck his sternum and Hardy suffered through the stabbing pain in his chest. 

The angel vanished in a flash of light and the snow turned into rain. 

Suddenly, he was back lying on the bank of the Sandbrook River next to Pippa’s water-logged corpse. 

The rain was coming down and the river was flooding. Water was running through him; filling his lungs and his veins; pumping through his heart and pouring out of him. It dripped from his fingers and trickled from his shoes. He could taste the salt and the grimy silt. It was under his skin and in his nose and on his tongue. 

Lisa Newbery’s question reverberated through his mind.

“ _How can you live with what you’ve done_?” 

Choking, he closed his eyes as a jolt of electricity went through him. 

For a split second he was back in the bedroom he’d shared with Tess in Sandbrook, standing in front of the broken window with the Celtic Cross he’d given Daisy fisted in his hand. The snow was falling down around him and Roche was escaping in Hardy’s Ford Escort. 

Hardy looked down, already knowing what he’d find there in the snow. 

A trail of blood and a pink cardigan at the end of it, stained ruby red and dusted with snowflakes.

“ _Alec Hardy’s gotten dozens of humans killed in the crossfire_ ,” Lisa had told Ellie, but Hardy had lost track of the number of those he couldn’t save and their faces had blurred in his inadequate human memory. Even poor Pippa had been reduced to a lifeless corpse. 

Except for _her_.

Hardy ran out into the snow, but he was too late to prevent the tragedy from happening all over again. 

“Daisy!”

An invisible force rammed against his chest and the nightmare crumbled around him. 

*

He spasmed and came awake, gasping and disoriented amongst the rustling reeds. Stars pinwheeled overhead, winking in and out of focus, and a pale shape loomed over him. 

“Wake up you bloody-”

“Miller?” he breathed. 

Ellie Miller froze with her hand raised to strike him again. His body shook and he gagged. Shoving past her, he threw up brackish water and blood. He crawled to the water’s edge and he got sick again. 

Over and over again. 

Miller rubbed his back until he was reduced to dry heaving.

“You’re okay,” she reassured him, wrapping the duvet from their bungalow around his shaking shoulders. “You’re safe on land,” she soothed him and bloody tears slid down his cheeks. Miller held him until the shuddering spasms finished wracking through his body. 

“I killed her,” he croaked.

“Lee Ashworth killed her,” she argued, and he didn’t have the energy to correct her. “She was gonna turn me,” she added softly. 

Hardy bit through the duvet as a final spasm quaked through his body. Miller rested a hand on his arm and waited for him to meet her gaze. 

“I would never want that,” he whispered. Profound relief was reflected in her eyes. He let go of the duvet and gathered her in his arms. 

“You’re too bloody irritating,” he mumbled against her wet hair as she sighed. 

“You’re the last man I’d ever want to spend eternity with,” she grumbled and he snorted. 

“Technically, I’m not a man anymore,” he quipped and drew back from her. He held her face between his hands, running his thumbs over the tear tracks. Her lower lip wobbled and she punched his arm.

“I thought you’d drowned!” she cried. 

“ _Nah_.” He didn’t tell her he could’ve drowning within the confines of his own hell, if she hadn’t dragged him out of it. 

“I went back in for you,” she told him, shivering.

“You shouldn’t have,” Hardy said and blood welled up in his eyes. He swallowed hard and steeled himself to tell her the truth. “Ellie,” he choked out, “Lisa was right. I killed her Mate. I’ve – I’ve got blood on my hands-” 

Miller interrupted him with a sneeze and Hardy realized that her teeth were chattering. 

“God’s sake Millah, you’ll catch your death out here,” he snapped and bundled her up in the damp duvet. 

“You could say thank you,” she ground out between chattering teeth as he scooped her up off the ground. The salt water and pond scum had partially masked her scent, but she left copper smears on the duvet as he hurried back to the bungalow.

He deposited her outside the door to the loo.

“Do you need help?” he asked worriedly, but she must’ve already stripped off half her layers and kicked off her shoes while she was in the water. He reached for the hem of her top that was sticking to her belly and she flinched. 

“’m still bleeding,” she stammered and he released her at once. 

“Where’s your necklace?” he demanded. 

“Seriously?” she sniped at him, “You want to do this now?” 

He turned on the shower for her and dug out the warmest clothing he could find in her wardrobe. He knocked once and shoved everything onto the shelf, but the loo was so steamed up that he couldn’t have seen anything, even if he had been tempted to peek. 

Hardy hastily changed into dry clothes and then he ripped open two packets of synthetic blood. The stuff tasted awful; it didn’t make the nausea go away but it quenched any remaining hunger for Miller’s blood. 

Miller came out in layers of flannel and the comfy robe that she’d designated as his that he suspected must’ve been Joe’s. She was still shivering and she was too pale. She kept fumbling with the ridiculously small plasters she’d tried to stick onto her damp skin. Hardy swore his shrivelled heart lurched in his chest. 

“Sit down,” he urged her and handed her a steaming mug of tea. He waited until she’d swallowed half of it, before he went in to get the First Aid Kit. 

Gently, he reached for the hand she’d cut open for him. She didn’t flinch away from his touch; she must’ve been so cold that his cooling fingers felt warm to her.

“Did you clean this?” he asked, rolling up her sleeve to inspect the laceration. 

“With soap and water.”

Hardy gave her a look and removed the Sesame Street plasters that were more suited for Fred and papercuts. 

And then he carefully cleaned the wound with the rubbing alcohol and applied the antibacterial cream from the kit. She winced and jerked away from him a few times, but it was oddly comforting to know that the pain could be blamed on a stringent chemical. 

He was so absorbed by the task of bandaging her arm and her hand, that he barely noticed the thud of her heartbeat or the scent of her blood. 

“I lost it.”

Hardy paused and gazed up at her. 

“Your mother’s necklace and Jack’s medal.” She chewed on her lip. “I used it on Lisa and then I jumped into the water…” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I’m sorry.”

He closed up the kit and touched her face with the backs of his fingers.

“Don’t be,” he whispered, “It finally served its purpose.”

Miller caught his hand as he lowered it, bringing their laced fingers to her knee. 

“What happened to her?” she asked softly.

“My mother was killed by a vampire because she gave me that necklace,” he told her, but he knew by the way she was looking at him that she hadn’t been asking about his Mum. Her glittering eyes searched his for more, but Hardy had shut up the pandora’s box of memories and locked it away again. 

“That’s why you became a Wraith,” she murmured.

“They tried to wipe my memory, but it didn’t work on me,” he revealed, shrugging. “The Institute recruited me as soon as I was old enough.”

Miller stared at him as if she could see the scrawny angry teenager he’d been when Murray had come back for him. She was dying to ask him more questions, but she sneezed again. 

Hardy untangled their fingers, laying his hand on her brow. He’d tried not to make a habit of touching her, but he thought her skin felt warmer than usual. He feared she might be ill.

“I’m fine,” she grunted and rose from her chair on unsteady legs. 

He steered her over to the bed like a mother hen. 

“I think you have a fever,” he predicted and she sneezed right on cue. 

“Don’t fuss.” Yawning, she crawled under the thin sheet. He felt a strange sensation in his chest, upon realizing that she’d sacrificed most of the blankets and the duvet to dry him off. 

“You were brilliant,” he blurted, his voice laced with a surge of emotion he couldn’t even begin to express.

“Don’t make it a habit,” she said wearily, closing her eyes. “I won’t always be around to save your arse.”

Hardy thought again of what Lisa had offered him and felt a twinge of remorse for even considering the idea. 

“D’you think Lee’s coming for us?” she asked around another yawn. 

Hardy didn’t think so. Lisa had wanted to turn Miller; siring a vampire was a time-consuming process for an attentive sire like Lisa. She wouldn’t have started the process if Ashworth had a Plan B for when they failed. Like Hardy, Lee Ashworth had underestimated the power of one very human and seemingly insignificant woman. 

And Ashworth had no idea what Hardy was willing to do to protect her. 

“Not tonight,” he whispered and tucked the sheet in around her. “Get some rest.”

“You should too,” she slurred and he was consumed by everything he felt for this deceptively ordinary woman. 

Hardy leaned over and kissed her, but Ellie was already asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if the flashbacks were really confusing, it's always a risk bringing in a dream sequence/flashback. I'll explain or fix anything that needs clarification. Obviously I was trying to incorporate the scenes in Broadchurch where Hardy's illness and his demons made him feel like he was literally drowning. Unfortunately I am not Chibnall and I can't stage the scene like he can (I'm very bummed about this too). Please let me know what you think y'all! Also I'm dying to know if anyone correctly predicted Lulu's identity...


	13. An Illness with No Cure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy tries to absolve himself of guilt in order to prepare them for the worst-case scenario, but Ellie fears that something's wrong with her vampire.

Hardy spent most of the night watching the moonlight play across Miller’s face. He hated leaving her, but the bedsheet and her flannels weren’t enough to keep her warm. Hardy broke into an empty property on the other side of the river, and brought back a space heater and some blankets for her. 

The chills stopped and Miller slept more deeply, but Hardy sat with her until the sun was nearly up. Her internal alarm clock must’ve gone off, but once he assured her that Tom and Fred were safe with her sister, she rolled over and went back to sleep. 

At dawn, Hardy deemed it safe enough to step out for a bit longer. 

Sunlight pierced through the thin layer of fog as he poked around the area where Miller had dragged him out of the water. The reeds rustled around him, but he slipped through them and the curling mist like a gentle breeze. Hardy was so focused on keeping an eye the bungalow across the water and the man walking his dog on the nearby trail; he tripped over what he was hunting for in the marshland. 

Hardy went sprawling, landing half in the water and the terrier went insane. The barking pierced Hardy’s sensitive ears and reverberated in his head as the water seeped in through his clothes. The stupid creature came barrelling in through the reeds, but stopped a safe distance away to bark some more at him. Hardy’s fangs came out against his volition and he hissed at the wee beast. 

Whining and whimpering, the terrier raced back to its owner. 

“What’d you find Pookie? Nessie? A Water Kelpie?” the man quipped. His voice drifted further away, until Hardy made the mistake of moving and snapped several reeds. The man paused and peered in at where Hardy was lying face down in the mud. 

The terrier cried and yipped fearfully, but the dog’s owner came closer and closer to where Hardy was hiding. Hardy’s lower lip was bleeding, but he couldn’t get rid of the fangs or will himself to let go of the cold, lifeless husk in the mud next to him. 

It was foolish and hypocritical of him, but Hardy thought she deserved some dignity in death. 

The man paused to scold the terrier and Hardy took advantage of the split second of inattention. 

Bracing himself, he dragged Lisa’s body down into the shallow water with him. He didn’t submerge himself entirely and he was careful to anchor himself to a pipe that was sticking out of the embankment. Nevertheless, Hardy could feel the panic clawing at him as the lazy current tugged and swirled around him. Futilely, he reminded himself that he didn’t need oxygen, but Hardy felt the pressure of the pureness as if he was thousands of leagues under the sea. 

The agonizing minutes ticked by, but all Hardy could think of was how he’d dragged Pippa’s body from the filthy Sandbrook River. Lisa’s body was heavier than hers; Hardy could feel the weight of two extra decades of guilt corroding at what was left of his sanity. 

“ _How can you live with what you’ve done_?”

Hardy thought of Daisy; twirling around the dance floor with him and going on and on about her future wedding. And then he remembered the blood-stained snow and Tess screaming at him as she stared down the barrel of a gun.

“ _I’ll never forgive you, Alec_.” 

The pain in his chest intensified as if his lungs might burst from a lack of oxygen. 

Hardy threw himself onto the bank, gasping and shaking. The dog and its owner were gone, and the waves were washing over Lisa next to him as the tide came in again. Hardy closed her eyelids, apologizing wordlessly for failing her and her cousin. Lisa looked more at peace than she had been since Ashworth had robbed her of her humanity. 

Hardy wanted to believe it. 

*

Hardy burned Lisa’s body in a nearby firepit hidden by an eroding cliff. Teenagers often gathered there, so no one paid any attention to the smoke. He’d never been more grateful for the fact that vampires’ bodies burned swiftly and didn’t smell. Hardy put out the fire with sand and spread the ashes around. He wished he could’ve done more for Lisa, but he couldn’t risk leaving Miller alone for any longer. 

At least he’d saved Lisa from being laid out on a slab in a morgue and sliced up by a stranger. Hardy thought that was a small comfort. He made a mental note to check in on the Newbury family (if there was anyone left) as he headed back to the bungalow. 

Hardy was walking by the wrecked sedan that a mechanic and another man were inspecting, when something under the vehicle caught his eye. He feigned interest in the car, pretending he had no idea what had happened. 

Neither of the men noticed Hardy crouch down to retrieve something from behind the slashed tire. 

*

Ellie woke again at noon with a blurry recollection of Hardy reassuring her that her boys were safe with Lucy and there’d been no sign of Lee Ashworth. He’d left her tea and toast. Ellie wolfed everything down, before noticing that her phone was also sitting on the nightstand. The screen was black and shattered, but when she plugged it into the charger, it flashed a low battery warning at her. 

“Found it under the car,” Hardy said from the doorjamb. He was uncharacteristically dressed in a soft jumper and jeans. His cheeks were flushed as if he’d recently fed, but he looked like shit. 

“I recorded Ricky’s confession last night on here,” she said, waving the phone at him. 

“Don’t get your hopes up,” he warned her and walked out. 

Ellie rolled her eyes at his dramatics and fell asleep while she was waiting for it to charge enough to ring Lucy.

A few hours later, Hardy shook her awake. 

“Sorry,” he whispered, grimacing. “Your sister wants to talk to you.” Her phone was vibrating and rattling on the nightstand and she had four missed calls. 

Ellie answered, fearing the worst, but it turned out that Fred had gotten a hold of the phone again. Tom even came on the line briefly to tell her that the quirky concierge from the last time was still at the hotel, and that Fred had tried to facetime with Lucy’s special ‘friend’. Ellie missed him fiercely once he’d handed the phone off to Lucy, especially after her sister tacked on another two hundred quid onto her bill. At this rate, she was going to have to re-mortgage or sell the house in order to pay her sister. 

“Everything alright?” Hardy asked, offering her a sandwich and some crisps.

“Mmhm.” Nodding, she stuffed her face. Swimming was bloody hard work and Ellie had done a lot of it yesterday. She offered the rest of her crisps to Hardy, but he wrinkled his nose. Embarrassed, she shoved them into her mouth. For a moment, she’d forgotten he was a vampire again. 

“I take it you’re feeling better,” he observed dryly, taking her empty plate. 

“Much better,” she assured him, but Hardy laid a hand on her forehead just to be certain. His palm was colder than she expected.

“You should get something to eat too,” she suggested and he snatched his hand back. 

“Already got something,” he grunted, moving into the kitchenette. 

“You’re freezing, Hardy.” 

“You’ve got a fever,” he said sharply as she followed him over to the sink. “You were in the water and in those sodden clothes for ages yesterday.”

“So were you,” she sniped at him. He looked as if he wanted to argue with her but she pinched his arm. “I had to resuscitate you last night.” 

“How’d that work out for you?” he scoffed, disbelievingly. She smacked his arm and he didn’t even drop the soapy dish. 

“I thought you were dead,” she said furiously and the dish suddenly shattered in the sink. “Now look what you’ve done,” she sighed, but he was staring at her hand on the counter next to him. 

He picked her hand up and examined her bruised knuckles. She tried to pull away from him, but he snagged her left hand and compared it to her right. 

“You didn’t get these when you were struggling with Lisa,” he murmured.

“I was trying to punch a hole through your chest,” she ground out as tears pricked at her eyes. He’d noticed by now that she cried at the drop of a hat, but for some reason this time it upset her that he might see. She tugged on her hands and he released them at once. 

Ellie locked herself in the loo and took a very hot and very long shower. And she most certainly did not cry over how close she’d come to losing Hardy. He was waiting for her, perched at the foot of the bed with his hands clasped between his knees. Dusk had fallen and the bungalow was bathed in shadows. 

“I’d like to take a look at your arm and your hand,” he said, patting the spot next to him. The laceration she’d made had been shallow and the anti-bacterial cream had worked its magic. Ellie had slapped on a few plasters (not the Sesame Street ones), but it was already scabbing over and healing nicely. 

“I didn’t want Lisa to turn you,” Hardy said suddenly, and Ellie looked up at him as he traced the slice in her open palm with his fingertip. “But _if_ something bad were to happen to you and _if_ I could stop it…” He lifted his solemn eyes to hers and waited.

“No,” she said firmly. “Not under _any_ circumstance.”

“What about your boys?” he asked.

“Lucy would take them,” she said. “That’s what Joe and I…” She halted and cleared her throat. “There’s instructions for them in my Will.”

Hardy released her injured hand and gently took her other one. He massaged her bruised knuckles with his thumb, rubbing some of the achy stiffness out of them. 

“Have you seen Jack’s Will yet?” he inquired.

“I was supposed to meet with his solicitor to go over his Estate, but I had to reschedule,” she recollected. “Jack gave me a key to a storage container a while back. I’ve got it locked up at the house.” 

“You should go get it and have a look,” Hardy suggested, but his expression was grave. 

“You think he stored another St. Mark’s medal in there?” she wondered sceptically. 

“Maybe,” he said, shrugging. “Dunno. It wouldn’t hurt to check.” When she continued to stare at him, he released her fingers. Dragging a hand through his hair, he sighed and angled himself closer to her. 

“I’ve got some money invested,” he admitted, “But I’d be willing to wager all of it that Jack left you a small fortune.”

“Not this again,” she huffed. Her memory of Christmas Eve was blurry, but after her mortifying proposition, she remembered Hardy feeding her some bullshit about Jack once being wealthy and powerful. 

“Jack wasn’t rich. The only time I ever saw him turn on the Charm was when the bill collectors showed up and he’d forgotten again.” An unexpected lump formed in her throat as the loss struck her all over again. She’d been so caught up with Joe’s betrayal, Tom’s stubbornness, and Hardy’s drama, that sometimes she forgot that Jack was gone. 

Something cool curled around her knee and she felt another stab of grief. Hardy was so different from Jack, and yet there were alarming similarities between him and the vampire who had helped raise her. 

“Lisa was right,” Hardy admitted hoarsely, “I can’t guarantee your safety if Ashworth comes back.”

“Even if Jack did leave me something,” Ellie hedged, “I can’t just pay Lee Ashworth to leave me alone. That’s extortion.”

Hardy shrugged. 

“Could work. Ashworth did offer to turn Pippa for a price,” Hardy mused. They mulled over it until he cleared his throat and fiddled with his earlobe.

“I was thinking you could go away for a bit,” he suggested, looking down at his hand on her knee. “You know until this all blows over… We could…” He tripped over the accidental we and she swore he blushed again. 

“I’m not leaving my boys,” she said decisively. 

“Fred could come with us,” he mollified.

“But Tom won’t,” she reminded him, “And I won’t force him.” Not until the circumstances were more dire, anyway. “I can’t leave him, Hardy.”

Hardy nodded and chewed on the inside of his cheek. 

“I’m not completely useless,” she pointed out, adding with a nudge to his arm, “Need I remind you who saved your arse last night.”

Hardy stared at her for a long moment, but the night had seeped into the room and her eyes weren’t adjusted. 

“You could at least pretend to be grateful,” she grumbled, but she’d misread his silence. 

Hardy cupped the back of her head and pressed a cool kiss to her brow. His hand slowly slipped from her hair to the nape of her neck, sending a flurry of pleasant shivers down her spine. 

“Are you cold?” he asked anxiously.

“A little,” she admitted, leaning into him. 

Unfortunately, Hardy was either oblivious or blatantly ignoring her invitation for a cuddle. He threw three more mildewy blankets on her and insisted she get back into bed. 

“I need to find that necklace,” he muttered and walked out. 

*

Later that night Ellie woke to the sound of someone retching outside her window. It was a Friday, and Hardy had complained about some teenagers frequenting a nearby firepit to get hammered on the weekends. She doubted Lee would announce himself like that, so she went back to sleep.

Hours later, Ellie woke again to the sounds of distant revelry and someone getting sick. Inwardly cursing the idiots for disturbing her sleep, she sat up and noticed a sliver of light under the door to the loo. Ellie wondered if she’d dreamed it, but when Hardy got sick again, she got out of bed and knocked on the door. 

“‘M in here,” he barked at her. 

“You okay?”

“Fine,” he grunted and flushed the toilet. “Go back to sleep.”

But Ellie had trouble sleeping. As she was dozing off, she heard him open the fridge and reach for another packet of synthetic blood, even though she thought he’d taken one earlier. Around dawn, he woke her from a fitful sleep, opening the door. It banged shut behind him and she heard him getting sick again. One of the fishermen actually stopped on their way out to ask if he was alright.

Ellie threw on her dressing gown.

“‘M fine,” he assured her, warding her off with an outstretched hand. 

“Are you injured?” Ellie crouched down next to him and brushed his fringe off of his clammy forehead. Hardy started to lean into her touch, but as soon as his eyes slipped closed, he jerked away from her as if he’d been burned. 

“Maybe you should lie down for a bit,” she suggested. 

“Later,” Hardy grudgingly agreed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We need to get that key.”

“It can wait,” she argued, but Hardy wouldn’t take no for an answer. 

He showered and practically inhaled the rest of her mouthwash. Ellie had to fight with him to let her shower too and he claimed she didn’t have time for coffee or toast. She stuffed a couple of slices of bread into her mouth before he impatiently stuck his head back inside. 

“ _Millah_!”

Ellie wasn’t particularly enjoying her role as a taxi driver for Hardy, but he kept drumming his fingers on his thighs and he looked even worse than yesterday. 

“Are you sure you’re alright?” she inquired once he was satisfied that it was safe for her to go into the house. 

“Just get the key,” he snapped, leaning up against her car as if he didn’t trust his legs to support him. “Hurry up,” he barked.

Ellie didn’t like the return of Hardy’s attitude, but she had no desire to spend any more time in the house she’d shared with Joe than was strictly necessary. It felt so wrong to be walking those silent halls; a stranger in her own home. She paused outside Tom’s room and she was nearly bowled over by how much she wanted him here. The loss of Tom hurt worse than losing the man she thought trusted and loved her more than anyone else. Ellie was furious that Joe had broken the only home that Tom had ever known and had robbed him of what was left of his childhood. After this was all over, Ellie vowed she’d bring Tom home again to restore a bit of normalcy, somehow. 

Ellie walked into the bedroom and unlocked the jewellery box, but she froze at the sight of her wedding ring and her favourite pair of earrings that Joe had gifted her on a recent anniversary. She vividly remembered the night he’d given them to her, that’s when they’d conceived Fred. It physically hurt her to look at a once treasured possession, knowing everything had been a lie. 

Sniffling, she shoved them aside and dug for the Yale key. 

A door snicked shut somewhere in the house and the key slipped through her fingers. A creak on the stairs confirmed that someone else was in the house, but all of her crucifixes were missing. 

There was no time to hide. 

Ellie picked up the jewellery box and hurled it at the door. 

Hardy stepped aside and the box crashed into the wall behind him, spilling her jewellery all over the carpet. 

“Jesus H. Christ,” she swore and shoved past him to clean the mess up. “You’re such a knob.”

“It’s been ages,” he whinged, squatting down next to her to help. “How long does it take to find a key?”

“I can’t find my crucifixes,” she snapped. “I had at least six of them, and they’re all gone.” 

“You won’t find them here.” He slammed the lid down on the jewellery box as she stuffed the last costume piece back inside. “Joe took them,” he explained, avoiding her eyes. 

“The Saint Mark’s medal too?” she asked, touching her chest where the medal and the Celtic cross usually sat.

Hardy passed by the mirror and she glimpsed some of the rage roiling in his eyes.

“I took it back,” he grunted and put the jewellery box away. Once again, Ellie wondered how Hardy had managed to restrain himself from killing Joe. “D’you need anything else?” he queried as she pocketed Jack’s key. 

Ellie should’ve gone through her and Fred’s things, but she wanted to leave before Joe took anything else from her. She stopped at the door to take one last glimpse at the place she’d once called home. 

“We were happy here.”

“I know,” he murmured and steered her outside. 

Ellie locked up and Hardy kept his hand on her back as they returned to the car. The neighbours were watching and the rest of the bloody town would likely come up with some new nasty theories about the nature of her relationship with her former boss. 

She snorted and shook her head. Everyone was so fixated on her not knowing what kind of monster Joe had been, and yet no one noticed that Hardy was a bloody vampire. 

“What?” the vampire asked, frowning at her. 

“Nothing.”

He was so fixated on her amusement that he walked into her next-door neighbour’s Cadillac. His knee left a small dent and he glanced at her sheepishly. 

“Do you like them?” he asked, motioning to the same neighbour’s house. Ellie had liked the older gossipy couple, up until Joe’s betrayal. She suspected that the Patterson’s were responsible for the nastiest rumours about her. 

“Not particularly,” she admitted, crinkling her nose. “They’re gossips.”

Hardy added a noticeable scratch to the dented car door. Ellie hid her grin and they pretended not to acknowledge what he’d done for her. 

*

Hardy had high hopes for the storage unit, but Jack had been clever enough not to store all of his eggs in one basket. Miller found an envelope with her name on it. Inside were two more keys; one to a safety deposit box in London and a second key for another storage unit in Bristol. Hardy did not have time to engage in a scavenger hunt, especially one that required them driving up to London. 

The storage unit was more for Jack’s use and was therefore unsurprisingly filled with enough synthetic blood packets to last him a decade, and some expensive ‘black’ wine that dated back centuries. Hardy was fairly certain one bottle was worth thousands of pounds, even though the making and selling of ‘black’ wine was prohibited. The British government had decided that a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ was the best route, when most British citizens refused to acknowledge that some vampires had in fact survived the epidemic. 

“Well at least he left me wine.”

“That’s vampire wine,” Hardy said dismissively, “You won’t like it.” 

Miller picked up a bottle and blew the dust off the label. She grinned, completely unaware that the French Bordeaux she’d dug out from amongst the black was worth more than she’d make in a year.

They’d brought a duffle bag and Hardy packed a few of the more expensive wines that he thought he could sell for her on the black market and give her the profits. Ellie threw in the Bordeaux and some blood for him. He glared at her because the bag wasn’t that big. 

“You need it,” she insisted stubbornly, “You’ve nearly gone through our supply.”

Hardy flushed, but she was right. Ever since he’d moved in with Miller, he’d been so careful and conscious of her presence. But since he’d jumped into the water to save her, he’d been nauseated and unable to keep anything down for more than a few hours. Going back for Lisa had only made matters worse. 

“We’ll stop at the butcher’s shop on the way back,” Ellie decided as he zipped up the bag. 

“That’s not necessary,” he argued, but she crossed her arms over her chest. 

“It is for your condition.”

“’s not a _condition_ ,” he grumbled.

“Oh, it definitely is.”

Hardy shouldered the bag and waited for her to take a final look around. There was something sticking out from under the dinghy she’d gotten nostalgic over. Hardy pulled the manilla envelope out. A peek inside confirmed that he’d found some of the money he’d been banking on. Hardy glimpsed a pretty woman with Miller’s wide smile and curls, holding wee Ellie, before he passed it on to her. 

Miller took the envelope from him and stiffened upon recognizing the family resemblance. She slid the photograph out and stared at her biological mother for several minutes.

“She must’ve been lovely,” she murmured as a tear streaked down her cheek. 

“She must’ve been extraordinary. Jack gave up his immortality for her,” he reminded her and Miller gave him a watery smile that punched him in the gut. 

“But she’s not my _Mum_ ,” she sniffled, carefully replacing the photograph inside the envelope. “I wish I could’ve known her. Mum and I don’t always see eye to eye, but she’s still…” She looked up at him, at a rare loss for words. Hardy understood, though, more than she would ever know. He wrapped his free arm around her, giving her shoulders a gentle squeeze. 

“We should go,” she said weakly and he let her go.

*

Ellie made Hardy wait in the car while she visited the Butcher’s. Unsure of what Hardy favoured, Ellie panicked and ordered everything he had in stock. Jack had been a frequent customer, but the old man’s bushy grey eyebrows shot up and then pulled low over his sharp eyes at the amount of blood she’d ordered. Ellie hoped he’d be as discrete as he’d been about Jack’s monthly trips. 

Hardy looked peakier. Ellie wondered if he’d gotten sick again while she was inside. 

“Got you sheep’s blood, pig’s blood and chicken’s blood.”

He sniffed the carrier bag and slouched in his seat, disinterested. 

“That’s all they had. Either eat or go hungry,” she snapped and he shrunk in on himself. Ellie was so distracted and hungry that she missed a turn on the way home, but Hardy told her to keep going. 

“I know a place,” he assured her when she scowled at him. “My treat,” he added awkwardly as if this was his way of apologizing for his rude behaviour. 

They pulled up to a quaint little bakery that Ellie had never visited, but she’d heard plenty about it. Hardy ushered her inside. The shop smelled like _heaven_. Ellie briefly wondered if she’d died the other night in the water and this was her reward. The pastries and cakes looked _divine_. A perky teenager in an apron offered her a sample and Ellie groaned at the deliciousness of the morsel they offered her. 

“Hardy, you have to try this,” she insisted, but she gobbled up his sample too. “Did you make this?” she asked the girl. 

“God, no, Gloria does all the baking and makes the magic happen,” the teenager explained with a wink, “I just work the till and keep the display case stocked.”

“She must be a Witch,” Ellie mused and the girl laughed as a black middle-aged woman came out from the back. The woman was wearing a brightly coloured scarf around her head and so many glittery necklaces that Ellie nearly missed the prominent pentagram. Two different pairs of eyeglasses hung from the chains and she was covered in flour. 

Ellie beamed at her.

“I’ve never tasted anything like this,” she confessed. Gloria smiled warmly at her, and Ellie was struck by her beauty before the dazzling, clunky necklaces drew her attention away from her face. Ellie wondered how she managed to bake with so many of them. 

“Get whatever you want. It’s on the house,” Gloria told her generously and Ellie fell in love right then and there. 

She didn’t notice that Gloria disappeared into the back along with Hardy. 

*

“You should’ve told me about Lisa,” Hardy snarled as soon as Gloria stepped outside and shut the back door behind them. “I could’ve helped her, Gloria. She was killing someone every three weeks.”

“They deserved it,” Gloria said, folding her arms over her chest. 

“Can you prove it? Everyone wants to be a vigilante and deliver justice, but sometimes they don’t get all the evidence and they get it wrong,” he went on, propping his hands on his hips. 

“Wraiths do the same thing,” she pointed out, but he ignored her jab at his former career. 

“The fledgling she was grooming was unsupervised and trying to turn a young woman without her consent when I caught up with him,” he argued, although he feared that Mina might’ve been ‘totally’ down if Jonathan had given her the heroin and sex first. 

Gloria sighed and leaned back against the door. 

“Lisa was troubled,” she admitted, “But she always meant well.” Her face softened. “She used to bring her grandmother in here sometimes. The woman was legally blind and a bit senile, but Lisa loved her more than her own mother.” She shook her head sadly and toyed with the pentagram. “Poor girl wasn’t right after she died. I think that was her only connection.” 

Hardy braced himself against the side of the brick building and hung his head.

“She’s gone now,” he confessed, his voice thick. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gloria reach for one of the many medallions around her neck and press it to her lips. She murmured something that sounded like a prayer under her breath. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I had to…”

He pushed off from the wall and paced away, scrubbing a hand over his face. 

“She forgave you, Hardy, for the pendant,” Gloria said softly and he swallowed hard. 

“Did she try to turn Ellie?”

Hardy’s head whipped up and she stared back at him with a mixture of pity and sympathy. 

“No one would blame you,” she told him, easing a bit of the weight on his shoulders. “She was Marked as Jack’s heir and now you’ve clearly claimed her.”

“Lee Ashworth’s coming for me,” Hardy blurted. 

Gloria paled at the name and anxiously reached for another one of her necklaces. 

“It’s only a matter of time, and Lisa must’ve explained to you happened the last time I got in his way…” He trailed off and she looked away. Hardy continued, building his case, “He’s murdered at least twelve children and three young women. Do you think Lisa asked to be turned? Ashworth took her life because she wanted _justice_ for her cousin-”

“Enough,” Gloria interrupted him, holding up a flour-dusted palm. “I don’t want to get involved.”

“I’m not recruiting you to work for the bloody Institute,” he interjected.

“If Lee finds out I helped you, then I’m next,” she said, her eyes flashing in a manner that made Hardy shut up and listen. “If he gets to me, then everyone I’m protecting will be in danger.” She knew every vampire that still resided in their territory and probably looked out for them too. Hardy outranked her, but _only_ because she’d turned the position down and had forced him to take it. 

“Then help me stop him, Gloria, because you and I both know that he’s not going to stop with me or you or…” He couldn’t even fathom losing Ellie or watching Lee Ashworth torture Tom for Claire’s amusement. Gloria fingered the glittery pentagram and stared off past Hardy. 

“You’re worried about Ellie’s little ones,” she said quietly and he blinked at her in surprise. “Jack was a proud grandparent,” she revealed, smiling ruefully. “He rarely ever mentioned them, but I could tell he adored Ellie and Tom.”

“Fred’s just a baby,” Hardy choked up at the thought of leaving Fred an orphan. And Tom. Gloria watched him closely and he wondered if she knew he’d already Marked Fred. 

“I’m not fighting anyone,” she said at last, reluctantly agreeing, “But I’ll help you look out for Ellie and her children.”

“Thank you.” Hardy’s relief was dizzying. 

“Be careful, Hardy,” she warned him, unknowingly echoing Baxter. “If Lee finds out you’ve taken a Mate-”

“She’s not my Mate,” he growled, but his blood roared at the thought of having Ellie Miller to himself. “The Institute would have my head.” Not to mention that Miller might stake him herself if she ever found out what he’d done. He ran his thumb over the scar his wedding ring had branded him with and willed himself to calm down. 

“I want to protect her, that’s all,” he insisted. “We owe it to Jack.”

Gloria eyed him sceptically, but she nodded in understanding. Hardy had heard a lot about Old Jack Adams, long before he’d met him. Jack hadn’t been perfect, but he’d hungered for knowledge instead of power and blood, and he’d quietly looked out for any vampire or human who’d sought his protection. If he survived Ashworth, Hardy sincerely hoped that he could do the same for all those now under his protection. 

“There you are!”

Hardy started and turned to find Miller rounding the building. More than his stomach was off if she was able to surprise him. Gloria had vanished, but he could feel her accusatory stare on him as Miller touched his arm. 

“You okay?” Miller asked worriedly, assuming he’d been sick again. 

“Fine. Did you get something?”

Her face lit up as she held up a white box that smelled disgustingly sweet. He honestly didn’t know how Gloria could tolerate all those scents and fumes on a daily basis. It had taken him weeks to adjust to Miller’s vanilla perfume, which she’d mysteriously and thankfully stopped wearing after Joe was arrested. 

“It was on the house,” she gushed and gave him another one of those bright smiles that sparked something inside of his chest that should’ve shrivelled up and died with his humanity. “They even let me take some samples home.” 

She excitedly rambled on about tiramisu and cannoli's. He didn't understand the appeal of dessert, but he was swept up by her passion and captivated by the way it transformed her into the happier, bubblier version of herself that still thrived in a universe where Danny never died and Joe never betrayed her. It broke his heart to see the stark contrast, but she also evoked a fierce response in him to do whatever was necessary to bring that light back into her eyes. 

Hardy curled an arm around her shoulders, forgetting about Gloria, Ashworth and the million other reasons why he shouldn’t get close to her. 

For a moment, he was just a man again, hopelessly in love with a woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a 'filler' that probably shouldn't have happened, but I desperately needed a distraction from the news and social media. I thought we could all use one, even if it didn't turn out to be as fluffy as I hoped. Apologies, y'all, I'll try to get part B of this chapter posted soon. Thanks y'all for making these last few months more bearable!


	14. A Nightmare that Never Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy's unwell, but when Ellie tries to help, she uncovers something heartbreaking.

Ellie shot up in bed, gasping for breath. Strips of warm sunlight burned the last remnants of the nightmare from her mind. The details were fading like smoke, but Lee Ashworth had slaughtered Hardy, dumping his body in the water.

And then the vampire had gone after her children. 

Ellie scrambled for her phone and called Tom. Sullenly, he picked up, but she nearly wept at the sound of his voice. He only let her talk so he could ask her something that required parental permission, unaware that she would’ve agreed to anything as long as he kept breathing. 

Ellie felt better until she found Hardy’s mobile vibrating by the sink. The caller rang again whilst she was making herself toast, leaving yet another voice message. With the nightmare still fresh in her mind, she jumped to the worst-case scenario. Hurriedly changing out of her pyjamas, she rushed outside to search for him. 

It was a lovely spring morning, but Ellie felt chilled at the thought of Hardy going after Lee without telling her. A terrier was barking wildly on the trail ahead of her; the owner was straining to get him under control.

“There’s something in there,” the man warned her, his eyes wide with fear as he dragged the dog off. “Something _big_. Pookie don’t scare easily, but yesterday he ran out cowering.”

Ellie’s heart plummeted. Ashworth must’ve sent another one of his minions to stake out the bungalow. Then she heard a familiar cough that made her heart sink even further. She parted the reeds and peered in at the _terrifying_ creature. 

Checking to ensure the coast was clear, she crawled in next to him. Hardy hissed when she touched his shoulder.

“It’s me,” she whispered, rubbing his back as he dry-heaved one more time. 

“Finished?”

Nodding, Hardy scraped a quivering hand over his mouth. Ellie carded her fingers through his hair and he slumped against her. Patiently, she waited for him to collect himself, but the lack of a gruff _‘M fine_ scared her almost as much as Lee Ashworth.

“Are you injured?”

He shook his head and Ellie’s fears grew. She’d foolishly thought that Jack had told her everything about vampires, but she hadn’t even scraped the surface. 

“I didn’t know vampires could become ill.”

“It’s the water,” Hardy spat, pressing a hand to his stomach. But he’d been out of the water and getting sick for almost three days; he should’ve gotten it out of his system by now. “I went back for Lisa’s body,” he admitted, “It was here, but that bloody beast-” His fangs peeked out and he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I grabbed Lisa’s body and hid in the water for a bit,” he confessed.

“You idiot,” she groaned, “I could’ve helped you.”

“No, it had to be me,” he said and his fangs vanished. When Ellie looked at him then, she didn’t see a vampire, only a tired man who was wrestling with his guilt. 

“She was gonna kill me,” Ellie reminded him.

“She was trying to save you,” Hardy corrected her.

“I don’t want-”

“I know,” he cut in, shifting away from her. “It’s a fate worse than death,” he added bitterly. 

“Hardy,” Ellie started, but she didn’t know what to say. She’d been so scared and focused on trying to escape, but Lisa had appealed to Hardy when she’d offered him Ellie’s _forever_. On Christmas Eve, Hardy had been _disgusted_ by the mere mention of sex with her, but sometimes she couldn’t help but wonder about the strange intimacy between them…

And he had to be lonely.

“How old are you?” she wondered.

“Not this again,” he sighed and leaned back on his hands. “Why does it matter?” 

“I’m curious,” she said, shrugging. “Ricky mentioned you were human during the Sandbrook case in ’89 and I saw the photograph of you in the file.”

Hardy closed his eyes and tipped his head back. The direct sunlight brought out highlights of auburn in his hair and uncovered the faint freckles scattered over the bridge of his nose. He looked so much younger than Jack, but guilt and heartbreak had corroded him too, well before he’d been turned. 

“I’m forty-eight,” he admitted and she snorted. She’d seen the photograph of him with Pippa’s body; he’d been at least her age.

“You’re not forty-eight,” she scoffed.

“I was,” he mollified, “When I was turned.”

“And when was that?” she asked, teasing him with a smile, “A couple of years ago?”

Hardy ignored her, clenching his jaw and digging his fingers into the mud between them. Ellie loved to rile him up, but his age was apparently another sore subject. Apologetically, she touched the back of his hand and was surprised by the warmth of his sun-baked skin. They were almost the same temperature. 

A briny breeze eddied around them, playing amongst the reeds and blowing her hair into her eyes. Hardy’s voice was almost lost amongst the rustling. 

“I was turned in ’92.”

Her head snapped up as he brushed her curls back with the hand that wasn’t trapped under hers. 

“You’re…” She blinked at him, struggling with the simple sum whilst he was caressing her. 

“I’m thirty years older than you,” he reluctantly admitted and lowered his hand. 

The age gap was jarring, but having grown up around a five-hundred-year-old vampire, Ellie had assumed that Hardy had been an ancient-pain-in-history’s-ass too. Until she’d skimmed through the Sandbrook file and Ricky had confirmed that Hardy had been human during the investigation. 

From the way Hardy had talked about Lee Ashworth, Ellie had guessed that he was Hardy’s sire. Logically, it fit with her hypothetical timeline if Hardy had gone off the grid, which is what Ellie assumed had happened when he’d abruptly resigned. But Hardy had denied it, so Ellie had come to another conclusion…

“Was it Claire Ripley?”

Every muscle in Hardy’s body locked up and he pulled his hand out from under hers. He stood up too fast and wound up down on all fours, getting violently ill again. Ellie made a mental note to never mention the female vampire’s name again.

Hardy had barely recovered when a group of cyclists on the path behind them startled him. He moved fast, seizing her and dragging her into the water with him. She gasped as the water soaked through her clothes. He was clinging to her so tightly that she was going to have more bruises.

“Hardy,” she hissed at him.

“ _Shhh_!” 

He clapped a dripping hand over her mouth, practically vibrating with tension. Ellie tugged on his earlobe.

“’s not him,” she whispered as the sound of children laughing filtered in through the reeds. Hardy loosened his hold on her and they propped themselves up in the knee-deep water. He’d bit through his lower lip, but he was so pale, she doubted he had much blood left in him. 

“Ashworth should’ve been here by now,” Hardy said shakily. “I don’t know what he’s waiting for.” 

But as Hardy’s arms gave out on him and he splashed back into the shallow water, Lee Ashworth wasn’t Ellie’s first priority. 

“When’s the last time you slept?” she demanded, hauling him up by the arm. 

“Dozed for a bit this morning,” he fibbed and she almost left him there. She was so mad at him. 

“You bloody idiot, you haven’t slept at all since I brought you back to life?!” 

“Couldn’t exactly crawl into bed with you,” he grumbled. 

“You could’ve asked!” she sniped at him. 

“I could lose my head for that,” he argued. “It’s a Class VP-A offense.”

“Don’t be a twat about this,” she snapped, helping him out of the water, “I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

Hardy didn’t argue with her and that was another red flag.

“C’mon, let’s get you inside,” she urged him, but Hardy collapsed on the embankment. He squeezed his eyes shut and grimaced. 

_Honestly_. Fred was easier to manage than a seventy-year-old vampire.

“Oh, no, we’re not taking a kip here.” 

Ellie tried to move him, but he was dead weight and stubborn as an ox. She finally got him up off the ground and something shiny slithered out from under his jumper. Squeaking, Ellie let go of him and jumped back. Hardy slammed down onto the bank on top of it. 

“If that was an eel or a water snake, you’re on your own,” she told him. 

Hardy made a noise that sounded suspiciously like breathy laughter and pushed himself up onto his knees. Something flashed in the sunlight before disappearing into his trouser pocket. It took him a few extra seconds to find his footing, but after slinging an arm around her shoulders, he managed a slow walk back to the bungalow. 

At his insistence, she changed into clean clothes and left him alone to shower.

Sitting out on the front stoop with her first of many cups of tea, she wondered how she was supposed to protect them from a vampire power couple when Hardy’s only means of defence right now was to jump into the water. They didn’t even have a crucifix or a proper stake. 

Hardy slumped down next to her, knocking knees and elbows with her on the small stoop. She could tell by his body temperature that he’d drank some of the blood she’d left out for him. Ellie prayed he could hold it down. 

“You should be in bed,” she chided him. 

“In a minute,” he murmured and she froze as the cool tips of his fingers brushed the nape of her neck. A familiar weight resettled against her chest, and the latent power of the faith that someone had instilled in that sacred object tingled beneath her skin. 

“Where’d you find it?” 

“Must’ve washed up on the bank.” 

Some of the tension drained out of her. The necklace wouldn’t provide much protection, but Ellie felt safer and stronger with those little reminders of Jack and Hardy’s faith in her.

“Were you sitting on it the whole time?” she teased him.

“Maybe,” he acknowledged. His nose grazed her cheek as she turned to look at him. 

“I’ll have to get it blessed again.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Hardy said. Before he could pull away, she snatched one of his hands and flipped it over. Most of the blisters had burst and were slowly healing, but the necklace had left red stripes and random spots of raw skin on his palm and fingertips. 

“Hardy,” she sighed. 

“That’s all I can do,” he apologized, clasping her shoulder and levelling her with his grave expression. “Most vampires strike at night so they don’t have to deal with the sensory overload or witnesses, but Ashworth’s not your typical vampire.”

Ellie clutched the Celtic Cross that had saved Hardy’s life years ago. 

“I’ll wake you if I think we’re in danger,” she promised.

“If it’s an eel or a water snake, you’re on your own,” he quipped.

“I’m not scared of them,” she sniffed, “Just think they’re disgusting.”

“You’re unbelievable,” he sighed, scratching at his arm. “A wee defenceless creature freaks you out, but not a blood-thirsty predator programmed to feed on you.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said, fearlessly meeting his gaze. “But I might freak out if you don’t get better soon.” 

Hardy was the first to look away, resuming his scratching. Ellie had seen him shirtless before, but that night he’d been injured, and it was strange seeing him in a fitted T-shirt with his wiry arms on display in broad daylight. 

“What happened here?” she wondered, touching the itchy spot that was bothering him. He frowned, but didn’t prevent her from leaning closer.

Ellie traced the barely visible indentation on the inside of Hardy’s forearm that she wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been scratching. He was littered with silvery scars, but this one was square-shaped. When she pressed down on it, she felt something harder than muscle beneath the sparse hair and the thin layer of skin.

Ellie blinked and Hardy wrenched his arm free from her. 

“’s nothing,” he insisted. 

Ellie might’ve believed him, but for a split second, she swore she’d seen a glowing script of microscopic numbers tattooed over the square indent. 

“Wake me at dusk,” he told her, passing a hand over her hair.

Ellie closed her eyes and the numbers reappeared, seared against the inside of her eyelid. 

She hadn’t imagined it; Hardy had a micro-chip in his arm. 

As soon as the door shut behind him, she put down her tea and pulled out her phone. 

*

By the time dusk had fallen, Ellie knew a lot more about vampires, but unfortunately not what might be ailing Hardy. The internet was a wealth of information; a lot of _false_ information (mostly based on _Shades of Blood and Gloaming_ ) and a whole host of reasons why humans felt that they were better off without vampires. Eventually, she was able to find a few legitimate sources, but the truth was hard for her to swallow. 

During the Golden Age, vampires had separate courts and laws that worked in tandem with the standard courts, but the epidemic, the riots and the blood bath that followed had wiped out everything. Jack had explained that most vampires had gone into hiding or had entered a facility for their own protection, but Ellie hadn’t grasped what it meant for a vampire that their courts and laws were never reinstated. 

Vampires like Jack who had been born before the Golden Age had almost the same rights as humans as long as they stayed up to date with their forged documents and made an effort to pass as human. But during the 1980’s tensions had been so high that strict laws were passed to regulate vampires, especially those reborn after the Golden Age ended.

Any vampire that was reborn after 1981 was either executed or required to spend five to twenty years in a conditioning facility to assist them with the transition. Starting in 1986, Hardy’s micro-chip came standard for any vampire who passed through a facility. Many of them were executed trying to escape or were roped into dubious financial and service contracts before they could be released. These vampires had to be registered, tracked and were required to have at least one or more human legal guardians vouching for them at all times. 

Hardy hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d mentioned that he could be executed for getting into bed with her. It was her word against his and post Golden Age vampires rarely got a trial, at least not a fair one. 

Ellie couldn’t believe that the Institute had chosen Hardy – a post Golden Age vampire with virtually no rights – for the job in Broadchurch. Her small town was rural, but Hardy had been made Detective Inspector, brazenly breaking twenty different laws by accepting the badge. She could only speculate that the Institute was capitalizing on Hardy being a former Wraith.

A whimper from the other side of the room caused her to look up from her research. Hardy whimpered again, and Ellie rose from the sofa. He thrashed in the bed, tangling his lanky limbs in the blankets. Ellie worried that he was having some kind of seizure. 

“No. _Not her_ ,” he moaned, twitching violently. 

He was having a nightmare. It took her a second to overcome her shock, she’d known that vampires needed some sleep, but dreaming hadn’t occurred to her. She reached for him, but he convulsed, crying out.

“Get away from the water!”

“ _Hardy_!”

Ellie squeezed his foot and he bolted upright. A split second later, he had her flat on her back, pinned to the mattress. He snarled and his fangs elongated. Her palms pushed uselessly against his solid chest.

“Alec! _Stop_! You're having a nightmare.”

He froze with his head cocked at an alarming angle that she thought meant he'd detected an elevated heart rate or the scent of blood.

“You're okay,” she soothed him, trying not to panic. “I've got you, we're both safe now.”

Hardy leaned in and sniffed her. Ellie closed her eyes as he nudged her with his nose and then something wet traced over one of her Marks. 

Oh, god, he was _licking_ her. 

And that was when she realized that those marks Hardy left on her weren’t just to warn _other_ vampires that she was protected; they served as a reminder to _him_ when he was out of control, that she was not to be harmed.

“Miller?” he whispered, nuzzling her.

Or maybe he just needed to know she was there. 

“I’m here, Hardy,” she breathed, sliding her hands over his T-shirt. Rubbing her palm over his chest and dragging her fingernails lightly down his back, she tried to erase the last wisps of the dreamscape and ground him in the present. 

Hardy made a noise that could’ve been a sigh of relief, and touched his lips to her forehead. The tip of his nose skimmed her cheek before she felt the cool press of his lips against the corner of her mouth. Her hand curled at the nape of his neck, tugging their faces the tiniest bit closer. Hardy moved a fraction of an inch, claiming more of her mouth and stealing her next breath. 

Ellie tried to hold her breath and stretch the moment out for as long as she possibly could. But her exhale startled him. 

Hardy leapt off of her and tripped over one of the blankets. Mumbling an apology, he was out the door so fast that Ellie wondered if she’d been the one dreaming. She peeked through the blinds and found him pacing back and forth, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. She flopped onto the bed and covered her flushed face with her hands. 

It was barely a kiss, Ellie reminded herself, and Hardy was a bloody vampire. He could be executed for kissing her without her explicit permission, but it was hard to remember that when he acted more human than most people. 

Ellie heard Hardy getting sick outside and her stomach churned with her fears from earlier. Shoving the barely-a-kiss to the back of her mind, she ran outside.

Hardy was huddled on the edge of the concrete. The front of his T-shirt and his face were smeared with blood. She wrapped an arm around his quivering shoulders and he reacted as if he’d been hit with a taser. Ellie had to seize the back of his T-shirt to prevent him from toppling over the ledge into the water. Flailing, he latched onto her legs, nearly upsetting her balance. She fisted a hand in his hair and his face screwed up in pain.

“Sorry,” they both said at the same time.

She relaxed her fingers in his hair and he tipped his head up to look at her. His eyes were so wide and vulnerable that she felt a lump forming in her throat. 

“I know,” she murmured, stroking his hair. “Lee and Claire,” she whispered, never taking her eyes off of his, “They took your daughter from you.”

A bloody tear trickled down his cheek and he pressed his forehead against her hip. 

“They paid someone to turn her,” he whispered brokenly. “She was only seventeen.” 

Ellie felt her heart stutter in her chest. All of her research was blurring together, but she distinctly recollected that there had been a law stating a vampire had to be at least eighteen years of age or they were compassionately euthanized.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, but an apology wasn’t enough.

The night was frigid and he was staining her pyjamas with blood, but Ellie gave him a few more minutes to regain control. Once she felt his arms around her thighs go slack, she coaxed him up and into the loo.

Ellie turned on the shower and sat him down on the lid of the toilet. She helped him strip off his filthy T-shirt and dabbed at his face with a cloth, but Hardy didn’t have any new scars, only the internal one that continued to bleed straight from whatever was left of his heart. As Hardy sagged against her, Ellie realized that she didn’t have the faintest idea how to heal an open-heart wound. 

How did anyone ever recover from losing a child? 

Hardy weakly pushed her out and shut the door behind her so he could clean himself up.

Ellie was waiting for him when he reemerged, smelling of her mouthwash again.

“It was the chicken’s blood,” he lied, “Never liked chicken.”

“Try the sheep’s blood.” She offered him a mug of blood she’d brought to room temperature on the stove. Hardy might’ve blushed if he’d had any blood left in him.

“You didn’t have to,” he started, but she interrupted him.

“Sit down.”

“I should…” He trailed off, motioning with the mug that he’d take it in the other room. But Ellie got up and followed him to the sofa with her cup of cocoa. Hardy was clearly self-conscious about feeding in front of her, but he needed to get over it.

“We’re in this together,” she reminded him. Their shoulders collided and Hardy winced, his eyes flicking to the blessed necklace, before Ellie allowed a few inches between them. Tucking her knees up under her, she waited until Hardy had taken a few hesitant sips.

“Tom and Fred are coming back in two days and my leave is up,” she said, opening the discussion they’d been putting off. 

“I can’t figure out what Lee’s doing,” Hardy admitted, “If it was me, I would’ve killed you already.”

“Thanks a lot,” she snapped. 

“He must not know that I’m not in any state to fight anyone right now,” he went on, ignoring her. Ellie almost pointed out that Hardy was rarely in an ideal state to fight anyone, especially a former soldier like Lee Ashworth. 

“Are you sure there isn’t anyone that can help us?” Ellie asked again. “You said Lee was a war hero and untouchable, but now we’ve got Ricky’s recording-” 

“No,” Hardy shut her down, his eyes flashing. “’s not enough.” Now that Ellie had done her research, she understood Hardy’s precarious position as a post Golden Age vampire; they’d need a confession from Lee Ashworth himself before Hardy could even _think_ of accusing him of anything. 

“What about Jocelyn?” she suggested hopefully.

“Already tried,” Hardy confessed, finishing off his cup and wiping at his mouth. “If she sees that bite on your neck, she’s obligated to report me.” He held up a hand before she could jump in. “She wouldn’t send me to the gallows, but I’d be quarantined in a facility until they could dig up the proper authorities to interview us. You could be dead by then.”

“Didn’t you give her a full report of what happened in the boatyard?” Ellie frowned and Hardy tapped a finger against the rim of his empty mug. 

“I might’ve left that bit out,” he said sheepishly and her eyes widened. “I’ve never slipped,” he admitted, “Not since I was a fledgling and I don’t remember it.”

“How long have you been out of the facility?” she wondered and he stared into the copper-stained mug. 

“Five years,” Hardy said softly, turning to face her. “I spent over fifteen years in there. They wouldn’t have let me out if they’d thought I couldn’t handle being around humans,” he defended himself, but his eyes were pleading with her to trust him.

“Jocelyn’s your guardian, isn’t she?” Ellie surmised, realizing why he was so hesitant to tell Jocelyn the truth. 

“She’s one of them,” he acknowledged, carefully setting down his mug and avoiding her gaze. “My wife’s my primary guardian.”

Ellie stood up so fast she spilled the rest of her cocoa down the front of her top. 

“You’re married!?” she sputtered.

“On paper only, I haven’t seen Tess in _years_.” He scratched at his jaw and made a face. “After I was turned, the Institute offered her money so she wouldn’t divorce me or have me declared dead.”

Ellie rubbed her forehead, struggling to process everything that she’d learned today. It made sense that Hardy’s best shot was to ride his human identity for as long as possible, but she didn’t understand why the Institute was so invested in him. 

“Why would they go to so much trouble? Someone could still recognize you and you’re not even trying to look like you’re seventy.”

Hardy’s face pinked at the mention of his age and he scowled at the weird tan line he had from his absent wedding ring. 

“I was a Wraith,” he reminded her bitterly. “With the exception of the crime scene photo of me with Pippa’s body, there aren’t any photographs of me on file. We had to be ghosts.”

“But you had a family,” she argued, remembering what Jack had said about families being frowned upon for that reason. 

“An accident,” Hardy blurted out, squirming and tugging at his ear. “Tess and I met in Croatia on holiday. Two weeks and she broke my heart at the end of it.” He sighed heavily as if his heart still had never recovered from the blow. “I went to Moscow for eight months and when I came back.” He shrugged and spread his hands. “I was a father.”

“Bet your boss loved that,” she snorted. 

“My partner almost killed me,” he recollected with a hint of a smile. “But when Murray saw how tiny she was…” He trailed off, lost in his own treasured memories of his infant daughter. “I’m not sure how Murray managed it, but they left me alone until everything went to Hell after the lab breach,” he said ruefully. “Once things had stabilized, Murray sent me home.”

“And that’s when you got the job in Sandbrook?” Ellie prompted him. 

Hardy shook his head. 

“Spent most of my time as a DI in Scotland,” he explained. “We only came down to Sandbrook because Tess got a promotion at Royal Mercia.”

Ellie mulled all of this over, filling in parts of the sketch she had of Hardy’s tragic background. 

“Pippa and Lisa’s case made the news.”

“DCI Collins was the _face_ of the Sandbrook case,” Hardy reminded her. “I rarely dealt directly with the press. Murray and Jocelyn drew up my original contract so that someone else would always handle that side of things.”

Suddenly, another idea occurred to her. 

“Is Murray still alive?”

Hardy stiffened.

“Why don’t you reach out to him? It sounds like he could put in a good word for you at the Institute,” she suggested and Hardy actually _growled_ at her. 

“I’ve been trying to contact that elusive bastard since I got the Sandbrook case.”

Ellie shrank back as he bared his fangs. 

“Alastair Murray protected me for decades, but when I needed him to save my daughter from Ashworth and his psychotic Mate-” He clammed up and turned away from her. Ellie hesitantly laid a hand on his arm, but Hardy jerked away from her.

And abruptly all the pieces fell into place with her research. 

“Oh, my god, Murray’s a vampire,” Ellie realized. “That’s why you’re called Wraiths. Your partners would wipe or adjust the memories of anyone you came into contact with.” She wondered why she’d never put it together sooner or why Jack had neglected this piece of her education. 

“Do you know what the life expectancy was for a Wraith?” Hardy asked her.

“No.”

“Twenty-six,” he revealed. She sucked in a breath at the thought of what Hardy must’ve faced during his career and what Murray might’ve done to ensure that he stayed alive. 

“Alistair Murray’s not the oldest or even the strongest vampire left,” he admitted, “But if he’d have wanted, he could’ve taken over the Institute and all of the U.K. with a few well-placed words.”

“His Charm didn’t work on you…” she recollected suddenly. “Murray was the one who found you after your Mum was killed by another vampire. He recruited you,” she surmised, correctly, judging from the way Hardy shrunk in on himself. 

“He _Marked_ me and my daughter,” he said as if that was supposed to make up for a vampire taking advantage of a boy who wanted revenge for his mother’s death. 

Stretching out a hand toward him, she brushed his silky hair off of his forehead. Ellie couldn’t see the Mark, but she knew it was identical to the thumbprint Hardy had left on Fred’s forehead. 

“One day, out of the blue, Murray left the country,” Hardy recounted, “And after two years, when it was clear he had no intention of returning…”

“You were targeted,” she finished for him, lowering her hands to his shoulders that were so much stronger than they appeared. 

Ellie knew that Hardy was withholding something crucial from her, but tonight, she’d reopened a wound in his heart, excavating painful shards of his past and strengthening the link between them. She stood up and he came with her. Taking him by the hand, she led him to the only bed in the bungalow. 

He sat down on the bed, and she sensed how fragile he was beneath the icy exterior that kept her and other humans at arm’s length. He was exhausted. 

And he was _scared_.

“I can’t protect you when I’m asleep,” he groused.

“You need to keep something down,” she reminded him, “I don’t want you feeding on me.” He glowered at her and she ruffled his hair. “Try to sleep,” she urged him, “I’m not going anywhere,” she promised and he reluctantly got under the covers.

She turned off all the lights and dragged a chair in from the kitchen to the foot of his bed. Hardy’s eyes gleamed in the darkness, but inevitably they winked out. 

*

Hardy was plunged back into the water. The cold seeped in through his clothes, sinking into the marrow of his bones and filling his lungs and the chambers of his damaged heart. Ellie was gone and he sank like a stone. 

Lisa and Pippa’s bodies were both with him, one on either side of him, anchoring him and growing heavier with each second that seemed to last an eternity. 

And somewhere up above a girl started to scream. 

They must’ve been leagues under the sea before he escaped the weight of their corpses. He swam hard toward the surface, but his lungs were threatening to burst and white spots were exploding before his eyes as the darkness below sucked at him like a black hole. 

Hardy was so cold, his limbs stiff and heavy. The surface was in reach, but when Hardy’s fingers brushed against it, he found that the water had turned to solid ice. He took his last breath and the river froze around him. 

“DAD!”

The ice cracked and burst apart. The dream world dizzyingly turned on its axis, so that Hardy was standing on the surface of the ice, instead of beneath it. 

He opened his eyes to find himself in a familiar snowy scene. There was a Celtic Cross fisted in his hand, but it didn’t brand his palm and his breath was curling like smoke in the air before him. Hardy heard Roche starting up his Ford Escort and backing out of the drive, but Hardy didn’t try to stop the vampire from escaping because it was futile. 

All of this had already happened, and no matter how many times Hardy dreamed about the snow or tried to press pause here, he couldn’t stop the memories of the worst day of his human existence from plaguing him in his waking hours. 

Some of the memories were distorted or blurred like frost on a windowpane, and yet Hardy felt the same stabbing pain tearing him apart, every time he heard her ragged whisper.

“ _Dad_.”

Alec Hardy had encountered feral vampires, cold-blooded murderers and the worst sort of criminals; but none of those beasts had ever scared him as much as his daughter. 

“ _Daisy_!”

He sank into the blood-stained snow and he sensed the cruel, cold veil of Death creeping between him and his daughter. 

“Dad,” she rasped, her teeth chattering. “I t-tried to f-f-fight, but there were t-t-three.” 

Hardy’s vision swam in and out of focus, but they wouldn’t be back, they’d already taken enough. 

“Shh, darlin’, Mum’s on her way.” He stripped off his coat and tucked it in around his sweet little girl. “She’s gonna fix you up,” he lied and pressed a kiss to her feverish brow. 

She was burning up and her heart was racing fast as a hummingbird’s tiny wings. Hardy stroked his daughter’s damp hair and carefully peeled back her blood-stained collar to see what he could do.

“I love you, sweetheart, you’re so brave and strong just like Mum,” Hardy praised her, even as his heart shattered at the sight of her open wound.

“T-too s-soppy,” she whispered and coughed up blood. She was too clever to miss the tears in his eyes. 

“Daddy,” she gasped, grasping at his fingers, “I don’t – don’t wanna d-d-die.”

Hardy was out of time. 

“I know this is hard, darlin’, but I need you to be braver and stronger than Mum,” he pleaded with her and pulled the Celtic Cross from his pocket.

“Like you?” Daisy’s voice was barely audible, but his heart stuttered in his chest and ground to a halt. 

“Stronger,” he whispered as tears pooled in his eyes, “Much, much stronger.”

Hardy gently tilted her head back and pressed the Celtic Cross against the vampire bite. 

Daisy screamed, arching up off the ground. 

Hardy shoved her into the snow and held her down. Fire and poison blazed through Daisy’s body as Heaven and Hell clashed for her precious soul. 

“Please, God, _please_ ,” Hardy wept, praying fervently to Saint Mark or whatever higher power might be listening as he tried to burn the poison out of her and solder the open wound. “Take me instead. I'll do anything. _Anything_.”

For one moment Hardy felt a fraction of the flames that were ripping through his daughter’s body. As the pain tore through his body, eviscerating him, he thought his prayers had been answered. 

And then he smelled burning flesh and saw what was happening to Daisy’s wound. 

His heart stopped again. 

Only for a moment. 

But that was all it took for them to turn him into a monster. 

*

Hardy woke up in the dark, disoriented and dizzy. A searing, throbbing pain in his hand overwhelmed the nausea. The acrid smell of his own burning flesh threatened to bring the blood and bile up, but Miller shifted closer. Her natural warmth and familiar scent washed over him. Her hand was on his and she was whispering to him. 

“Let go. Let go of the cross, Alec.”

Hardy’s fist uncurled beneath her fingers and the excruciating pain dulled to a more familiar ache. 

“Alright?” she whispered, threading her fingers through his hair. 

He nodded, dimly aware that he had his head on her chest and his palm resting on the buttons of her top. Several minutes passed before he managed to roll off of her, but he didn’t feel the urge to empty the contents of his stomach. 

Miller stripped off the damn Celtic Cross and shoved it into the drawer of the nightstand. Hardy should’ve stopped her, but the imprint of the cross was presently branded into his palm. She laid down next to him and he revelled in the nearness of her without the background radiation of the consecrated necklace. 

“You okay?” he asked, fearing he could’ve strangled her by unconsciously jerking on the chain.

“You didn’t get sick,” she said in lieu of a reply. He rolled his head to look at her. 

“’M fine,” he grunted and she breathed a sigh of relief. 

A tear slipped through her eyelashes, leaving a shiny streak on her cheeks amongst the messy blood lines he’d left on her. Hardy wanted to lick and kiss the salt and sorrow from her skin. He wanted to apologize and he wanted to thank her for being here with him.

But that night in Sandbrook, when his prayers had gone unanswered, Hardy’s heart had frozen over with the snowy landscape.

And yet, when Miller shifted closer, another layer of frost melted away as he warmed to her. 

“Did you get him? The vampire who bit your daughter?” she whispered raggedly, her eyes glistening. Hardy felt as if he still had the Celtic Cross in his palm as the pain flared up again, burning through him like a wildfire. 

“Aye,” he said, “After I was turned.”

Miller laid a hand on his cheek and the fire in his chest built up to a blazing inferno 

“I won’t let that happen to you,” he growled.

“I know,” she murmured, even though there was no way he could guarantee her safety.

And then she kissed him

The fiery rage itching beneath his skin simmered down as her warmer, softer lips met his in a kiss that lasted no longer than his helpless sigh. 

“ _Ellie_.”

She touched her fingertips to her lips, silencing him. Another tear painted her cheek; he knew she could finally see the invisible wall and the law standing between them. 

They wouldn’t mention it in the morning; the kiss would stay in the dark between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, y'all, I honestly have no idea why the chapter is so long or why it took me so long, but hopefully it answered some questions and I didn't contradict anything about this AU I wrote earlier in the story. Thanks for reading!


	15. A Thirst that can't be Quenched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hardy and Miller are back on the case, but it might destroy them.

Hardy woke with Miller’s curls tickling his nose. Her heart beat steadily in his ear, but the vampire’s thirst had been eclipsed by the yearning of his heart. The human within Hardy wanted to stay in bed with her all morning, revelling in her warmth and pretending that this could be real. 

Weak filaments of light chased the shadows and his nightmares from the room, but not the looming spectres of Lee Ashworth and Claire Ripley. Ashworth and Claire liked to play games, but Hardy wouldn’t let Miller become a pawn in this one. 

He crept out of bed, finished off the sheep’s blood and located his phone in the kitchen. The missed calls and messages would have to be dealt with eventually, but Hardy had bigger problems and Miller had given him an idea. 

He messaged Gloria. Then he pulled up one of his few surviving contacts from his Wraith days. 

“Craig? It’s Alec Hardy… I need a favour.” 

*

“Millah. _Millah_.”

Ellie’s eyelids fluttered and an impatient Hardy gradually came into focus. 

“Good, you’re up,” he said, as if he hadn’t just roused her from a dead sleep. He put down a steaming mug and a napkin with a few slices of bread. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked around a yawn, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. 

“Spectacular,” he grunted as she blearily reached for the cuppa. “C’mon. We’re going to Sandbrook.” 

Ellie choked on a mouthful of tea. 

“ _What_?” 

“You said we should talk to Cate,” Hardy reminded her, “But I’ve got a better idea.”

He looked loads better than he had yesterday. His eyes were clear and his skin had taken on a healthier pallor. Ellie caught herself glancing at his rosier lips, and it hit her that he’d kissed her (sort of) and then _she_ ’d kissed _him_. 

Hardy cleared his throat and rubbed at the nape of his neck.

“You look… rested,” he said awkwardly, jamming his hands into his pockets. “Did you um sleep okay?” 

Oh, _God_. She wanted to crawl back under the duvet. She’d gotten into bed with him last night to calm him down and then she’d stayed. He’d sat with her before while she slept, but now she knew he was over thirty years older than her and he was still married. Obviously, she was still married to Joe and she’d assumed that Hardy had been much older than her; but it was a bit weird. 

“I’ll leave you to-” He coughed, making a vague gesture to the bread and tea. His eyes briefly dropped to the missing button on her pyjama top and the small gap between her breasts. Ellie yanked the duvet up to her chin and Hardy spun around so fast, he knocked over the chair she’d left there. 

“Hurry up,” he snapped, hauling it back into the kitchenette. “I want to leave before ten.” 

*

Three hours later, they were halfway to Sandbrook with Ellie behind the wheel. Hardy fiddled with the radio dial for the nth time and she smacked his hand away from it. 

“This is a shit plan,” she said bluntly. 

“You got a better one?” he retorted and she scowled at the road ahead of them. 

With Lee Ashworth and Claire Ripley mysteriously absent, Hardy had decided to ‘reopen’ the Sandbrook case so that Ellie could have a go at it with a fresh set of eyes. Ellie had only agreed to the trip after he swore that someone was keeping an eye on Fred and Tom. 

“I trust them,” he’d assured her, and that had been nearly enough for Ellie. That and the fact that Lee and Claire might not even be aware of Tom and Fred’s existence and were more likely to track her and Hardy away from her boys, ensuring her children’s safety. 

Hardy took her to revisit the place where he thought the actual murders had happened. They were on a time frame. The two-family property the Gillespie’s had owned and leased to Lee Ashworth and Claire Ripley was soon to be demolished and rebuilt as part of a more modern eco-friendly housing complex. 

Hardy broke in through the front door too fast to be noticed anyone and let her in through the back gate. He kept a lookout while she examined the place and took a few photographs on her mobile. It was silly, the property must’ve changed hands since then, but after Ricky’s confession, Hardy wasn’t so sure. 

“One of the problems with vampires, particularly fledglings, is that they can be very territorial and sentimental. They don’t like to let go of their past lives,” Hardy explained. “If Ricky really did love his daughter, he would’ve done everything in his power to hang onto one of the places that held most of his memories of her and to keep it exactly the same.” 

“You think they’re still here?” Ellie asked sceptically, eyeing the thick layer of dust that lay over everything on the ground level of Lee and Claire’s former residence. 

Hardy shrugged. Cate had recently been moved to a care home, but Ricky must’ve deemed stepping in to save the property too risky with him being a vampire. 

The floorboards bothered Ellie, although she couldn't explain why. The sleeping bags on the floor of the bedroom upstairs and the empty bottles of wine littered around them bothered her too. Ellie noticed a peculiar lack of dust and felt an unpleasant chill in the air upstairs. Obviously, squatters would've taken advantage of the free real estate. However, upon a closer inspection of the en-suite, Ellie found that it was not only clean, but fully stocked with bleach and other cleaning products. 

A peek inside the medicine cabinet yielded an unexpected glimpse at the squatters. There was a first aid kit and a variety of expensive hair care products for both men and women. Scissors, razors, nail varnish, makeup and the sort of hand lotions you’d find in a spa. Ellie picked up one of them and dislodged the first aid kit. It broke open at her feet.

“Millah!” Hardy called from downstairs, sounding annoyed.

“Just a second,” she yelled back and crouched down to shove everything back into the first aid kit. 

There were the standard bandages, alcohol and alcohol swabs, but there was also a syringe, a line of full ampoules and two pill bottles with no labels. The first bottle rattled when she picked it up and something compelled her to open it. 

“ _Millah_.” 

Hardy suddenly appeared in the doorway and Ellie jumped, dropping the pill bottle. Instead of pills, a tangled mass of jewellery spilled out onto the tiled floor. A shimmery pendant gleamed amongst the mess of knotted chains and earrings. Hardy drew in a sharp breath behind her and Ellie recognized the pendant as the one that Pippa had been wearing in the photograph taken the day she went missing. 

“Don’t touch it,” Hardy instructed her and she rolled her eyes. 

“You know sometimes I do this for a living,” she reminded him. 

Patting down his coat, he removed a pair of gloves and an evidence bag he’d brought with him. Carefully, he swept everything back into the little bottle and resealed it, dropping it into his evidence bag. 

“There’s another one,” Ellie pointed out.

Hardy cracked open the other pill bottle. A pained noise escaped him; one Ellie had only heard once before. He tapped out a pair of silver hoop earrings and a flower shaped mood ring similar to the one Ellie had worn as a teenager. He tipped the silver hoop earrings back into the container, but he held onto the mood ring as it changed colours in his palm. 

“Lee must’ve taken trophies from all of his victims,” she surmised. 

“No, this was Claire,” he rasped and gave her the mood ring. 

Hardy dropped the second bottle into the bag with the first, but his hand was trembling slightly. He’d tucked everything into his coat and strode back into the bedroom before Ellie could hand the mood ring back to him. 

Frowning, she slipped the ring on and watched the coloured stone in the centre of the flower slowly shift from teal to lavender. And abruptly, Ellie recollected the message that Lee had told her to give Hardy.

_Remember Daisy_. 

“Shit!” Hardy swore in the next room. An empty wine bottle shattered against the adjoining wall and Ellie shot to her feet. 

“What’s the matter?” 

“This is Black Wine,” he snapped, waving a hand at the discarded bottles and kicking at the sleeping bag. “These aren’t human squatters. Lee, Claire or one of their ilk is staying here.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and paced the short length of the room.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” he cursed and scrubbed at his face. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.” 

The hairs at the nape of Ellie’s neck prickled and a strange feeling of apprehension washed over her.

Hardy was still ranting in the bedroom, but something rustled behind her. Slowly, Ellie turned around and faced the bath tub. A shower curtain enclosed it with pretty blue bells embroidered along the hem, but that wasn’t what had snagged her attention. 

The curtain was _moving_. 

“Hardy,” she whispered as her breath caught in her throat. 

“What?” he snapped, but Ellie watched in horror as a deathly white hand curled around the fabric and a single bloodshot eye was revealed. 

“ _What_?!” he demanded. 

The shower curtain snapped shut, but Hardy saw it. Growling, he shoved Ellie into the furthest corner of the loo, protectively blocking her from whatever was waiting for them. 

Ellie held her breath.

No one moved, and then the shower curtain twitched again. 

Hardy lunged for it, dragging the cowering creature out and dumping her on the floor between them. The girl instinctively curled up into a ball with her arms shielding her head and her face hidden by her long black hair.

“Where are they?” he barked at the poor creature. “Where’s Claire Ripley and Lee Ashworth?” 

He reached out to shake the terrified girl and she leapt back into the tub, bringing down the shower curtain with her and tangling herself up in it. 

“For fuck’s sake, give up the act and show yourself,” he demanded. 

“Stop yelling at her!” Ellie admonished him, yanking on the back of his coat. 

“She’s a fledgling,” he spat. “She can kill you.”

“But she didn’t,” she argued, defending the quivering creature that was now watching them from the tub with round eyes so dark they were nearly black. 

“What’s your name?” she asked the fledgling as two comically tiny fangs poked out of her mouth. The fledgling shot a petrified glance at Hardy and then whispered something. 

“Speak up,” Hardy ordered her and she flinched. 

Ellie elbowed Hardy out of the way and crouched down so that she was on eyelevel with the smaller fledgling. 

“It’s okay,” Ellie soothed her with a smile. “My name’s Ellie. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“K-k-kim,” the fledgling stuttered, darting another nervous look at Hardy. 

Within minutes it was abundantly clear that Kim was more scared of them and she didn’t understand or speak much English. She was so diminutive, Ellie had mistaken her for a child, but Kim claimed she was nineteen. Kim’s fangs were now very visible. She kept staring at Ellie and shrinking away from the only human in the room. Hardy tried to explain that he wanted to bring her to the Institute to help her, but Kim either didn’t believe him or she couldn’t understand him. 

“She needs blood,” Ellie whispered to him. 

“I know,” he hissed back, “But she’s not ready for synthetics or even animal blood yet.”

“What about wine?” She motioned toward the other room as Kim grew more visibly distressed.

“She’ll get sick and be worse off,” he sighed and touched the back of Kim’s trembling hand. She jerked back from him, burrowing under the shower curtain. 

“I could offer her some of my-” Ellie started but Hardy shut her down with a look that alarmed her. 

“ _No_.” His fangs reappeared and something sparked in his eyes. Once he turned back to Kim, though, the fire burnt out, fading into weary resignation. 

He lifted the shower curtain and peered in at Kim, brushing her beautiful hair off of her pinched face. Kim squeezed her eyes shut and moaned, clutching at her stomach and whimpering something in her native language. Hardy leaned down and whispered in her ear, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. 

Ellie had a sudden premonition of what was about to happen. Hardy would hate himself afterwards, but he’d do it to protect Ellie. 

“Hardy, don’t,” Ellie blurted out and he went rigid. Kim was a hungry fledgling, not much different from Nigel who’d tried to murder her, despite knowing Ellie for years. Ellie wasn’t an idiot, it was only a matter of time before Kim lost control, but killing her felt so wrong. 

“Please, don’t,” Ellie begged him. 

“I’ll be quick,” he promised, his voice breaking. 

“No!” Ellie grabbed his arm and forced him to face her. “There has to be another way,” she cried, hanging onto him as her mind raced through their limited options. “Why can’t you knock her out and lock her up somewhere?”

Hardy opened his mouth, but then it dawned on her. 

“The morphine!” she exclaimed and ran back in for the first aid kit. 

“It won’t work on her for long,” he protested, but when he inspected the vials and saw the hope in her eyes, he relented, “I could try.”

“We can lock her in the boot of the car until we can bring her somewhere safe,” she suggested. 

“I suppose,” he hedged, chewing on his lower lip. “I could give her some of my blood. If she was turned within the last few months, it might tide her over for a wee bit…”

“Do it,” Ellie told him, but Hardy hesitated. “What is it?”

“You need to be quick,” he instructed her, holding her gaze. “The morphine will take a minute to set in. She’ll try to go for you next and I might not be able to stop her.” 

Ellie sized up the six foot one vampire and compared him to the child-sized lump that was quaking under the shower curtain. She arched a brow and he sighed. 

“Just get the morphine ready,” he sniped, watching the fledgling closely. 

Ellie worked fast. Hardy waited until she had the needle prepared and ready to be inserted. 

“Ready?”

She nodded and he bit his arm, slicing open his own wrist with a piercing fang. 

The fledgling threw off the shower curtain and sniffed the air. Her nostrils flared and her pupils were blown wide as she zeroed in on Hardy with the precision of a hawk. Snarling, she dove out of the tub and pounced on her prey. 

Ellie was unprepared for it. One moment there was a frightened child, and suddenly there was a blood-thirsty monster on top of Hardy devouring his blood. 

“Now, Miller!”

Ellie jammed the needle into Kim’s arm, but she ignored her, suckling Hardy’s wrist and sending blood spouting and spattering everywhere. Hardy had been so gentle with her; Ellie often forgot the disgusting messiness of the feeding frenzy. This was why Hardy was so self-conscious about it. 

Hardy growled and bucked, tossing Kim off of him. He’d warned her, but Ellie was stunned when Kim turned blindly on her. It all happened within the span of a second; Kim’s blood smeared mouth opened, revealing her dripping ruby-tipped fangs, and then she bent down-

Hardy plucked the fledgling off of her and cracked her head against the porcelain toilet. Kim crumpled, unconscious and bleeding from a skull wound.

“Is she alright?” Ellie asked, sitting up shakily on the floor of the loo. 

“She’ll be fine. She’s already healing,” Hardy assured her, his face contorted in pain. An involuntary hiss escaped him as he licked at the self-inflicted wound in his wrist. Ellie got a towel from the linen closet. 

“Are _you_ alright?” she asked anxiously. She knelt down next to him and applied the towel to the bleeding gash.

“’m fine,” he assured her and frowned at her neck. “You’re not wearing your necklace.”

Ellie’s hand flew to her throat and then to her chest where the Celtic Cross and the St. Mark’s medal usually sat. Her eyes widened. 

“I took it off last night after you-” She broke off as he groaned and pressed his free hand to his face. “Oh, God, you’re not going to be sick, are you?”

“No,” he sighed and took a steadying breath; a habit he couldn’t break after twenty-plus years. “I’m taking her to the car and you’re staying right here until I have her secured in the boot.”

“I can help.”

“You’ve done enough,” he snapped at her and she bristled.

“Don’t put this on me,” she fired back at him, “You’re the one who spent the last three days hurling up your guts just because you had to put Lisa down. Can you imagine the guilt you would’ve felt if you had to end that poor creature’s life too?” 

“It was the water,” he insisted. 

“Right,” she snorted, “And all that blood staining your hands.”

Hardy gingerly lifted and cradled Kim in his arms as if she were a surrogate for the daughter Ellie suspected he’d had to compassionately euthanize. 

“Don’t move,” he ordered her, his eyes boring into hers. “I’ll be right back.”

Ellie folded her arms over her chest and glowered up at him, but she stayed put as he stepped over her legs and vanished. Kim had frightened her, but Ellie didn’t regret her decision to spare her life. 

Not yet anyway. 

*

Hardy couldn’t believe he’d let Miller talk him into this mess. He wasn’t a heartless executioner; if Miller hadn’t been there, he would’ve whisked Kim away to one of the Institute’s holding cells until they could arrange transport to a facility. Regardless of how innocent Kim seemed, all fledglings were slaves to their unquenchable thirst for blood. 

And Miller had a strong heart that pumped blood that tasted like nothing Hardy had ever imbibed. 

It was cruel for him to dangle Miller in front of Kim, but Hardy’s few allies were in Dorset and the Institute would take days to get back to him. Fledglings needed to be watched constantly and kept safely away from humanity until they could control themselves. Hardy couldn’t risk separating from Miller in Ashworth’s territory and he couldn’t let Kim loose in her unstable state. 

Popping open the boot, he spread out the sandy blanket Miller already had in there. Kim was out cold and small enough to fit comfortably inside, but Hardy removed a pair of handcuffs from his coat and cuffed her. Just in case. 

“Sorry,” he whispered guiltily, “We’ll get you help soon. I promise.”

They couldn’t have been more different, but for a moment, Hardy saw his own daughter instead of Kim. 

Then he closed the boot and locked the car. 

He was halfway upstairs when the vehicle started to rock ominously behind him. 

But Hardy didn’t hear the infuriated fledgling punching and clawing her way to freedom.

His ears were ringing as all of the blood left him in one fell swoop. 

*

After a minute of stewing and staring at the blood spatters from the vampires’ scuffle, Ellie retrieved more towels and mopped up the mess. The house was scheduled to be demolished, but she needed to do something or she’d go mad in the eerie silence. 

God only knew how many of the murdered children and missing young women had been turned or killed here. Was the odd skylight in the ceiling the last light they’d seen before their heart had stopped?

Ellie was down on all fours, scrubbing at the blood smear on the toilet when she felt another prickle of apprehension. 

A chill gripped her as a trickle of cool air came from overhead. Frowning, she looked up at the filthy skylight as a crack zig-zagged through the glass. 

Then it shattered. 

Ellie didn't have time to scream or protect herself as rotten leaves and dirt rained down on her with the shards of glass. Someone landed next to her and clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream. A cloud of perfume enveloped Ellie, so cloyingly sweet that it choked her. Ellie was still blinking the dust from her eyes, when she was hauled to her feet and caged against a deceptively soft body. 

“Hello, Alec,” the vampire purred as a wide-eyed Hardy materialized in the doorway. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger! _Who could it be now?_ Yes, I'm aware that it's highly unlikely that one dose of morphine would knock Kim out effectively, but she is tiny, Ellie was desperate for a solution, and let's pretend in this AU it's a bit stronger and acts similar to Propofol. Also Ao3 went down briefly when I first tried to post this so I apologize if it posted twice or something. Thanks y’all for reading and commenting!


	16. A Stain that can Never be Washed Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With a feisty fledgling on the loose, Ellie and Hardy encounter another dangerous vampire from his past, but none of them will walk away unscathed.

_“Hello, Alec,” the vampire purred as a wide-eyed Hardy materialized in the doorway. “I knew you’d come back.”_

Hardy’s terrified gaze landed on Ellie for only a second, before he shuttered his fears behind his usual irritated scowl. 

“Claire,” he growled warningly, folding his arms over his chest. “I’m not here to play.”

“Relax, Alec,” Ellie’s captor laughed, “I just want to have a chat with your new little mate.”

A muscle ticked in Hardy's jaw, a crack in the facade. Ellie fought with her mounting panic, wondering why the fuck Hardy hadn't attacked yet. Instead, he rolled up his sleeve and made a show of checking his watch. 

“Make it quick. I’ve got plans for her,” he snapped at Claire. 

“So, do I,” she said smugly, and twisted Ellie so that she could see her properly. 

The female vampire was pretty, but not in the same way Lisa had been. Claire looked like she'd been turned in her early thirties and she had a memorable gap between her two front teeth. The small imperfection, her curvy figure and something about her playful brown eyes made her appear dangerously human and friendly. 

“Oh, Alec,” she clucked as she inspected Ellie’s face and the bite mark on her neck, “You had a proper dirty weekend with this one.”

“Let her go.” Hardy didn't change his flat tone, but Ellie heard the underlying threat. 

“You’re older than the ones I usually choose, but I think we’ll have a spa day,” Claire went on, smiling and pinching Ellie’s cheeks as if she were a child. “I’ll cut your hair and then we’ll have a girl’s night, just you and me, doesn’t that sound fun?”

“Is that what you did for Pippa?” Ellie wondered. 

Claire’s smile vanished and her nails bit harder into her skin. Ellie strove to stay still so she wouldn’t bleed. A single drop of blood could send some vampires into a feeding frenzy.

“Ricky told us everything,” Hardy said, inching closer.

“That useless sack of shit could never keep his mouth shut,” Claire spat, “Turning him was my biggest regret.” 

She yanked Ellie back against her body, silencing her with a hand over her mouth as she backed them away from Hardy. Ellie’s skin crawled as Claire nuzzled her ear and sniffed at her hair. 

“If your precious pet plays nice, maybe I’ll show you some gratitude for killing Ricky. I might even share,” Claire offered. 

“She’s _mine_ ,” Hardy growled, his fangs finally coming out as he let loose the hated monster within. 

“Is she?” Claire goaded him, scraping a fingernail along Ellie’s cheekbone. “You know better than anyone else that it’s illegal to fuck or claim a human, but this one _reeks_ of you, Alec.”

“Give her to me,” Hardy growled. 

“And if I don’t...?”

There was a blur of movement and Ellie felt Claire’s grasp slacken, only for a second, and then Hardy was staggering backwards, stumbling over the sleeping bags with a hand over his bloody nose. Claire had her by the arm now, but Hardy had her full attention.

“I’m going to teach you a lesson, Alec, because it didn’t _sink_ in the first time,” Claire threatened him and Hardy paled. “This time,” she hissed, spinning Ellie back into her chest, “I’ll let you watch me do it.”

Hardy flung himself at Claire and Ellie escaped the vampire’s clutches. 

Diving for the bedroom, Ellie practically threw herself down the stairs. There was a pained yelp and a crash behind her, but Ellie didn't look back. She couldn’t. Racing for the front door, she focused fiercely on the faces of Tom and Fred in her mind’s eyes as if they could help her reach the door faster. 

But Claire beat her to it, materializing in front of her with a razor-sharp smile.

“Hello, pet.”

Ellie turned and ran back up the steps. There was a window and it was only two floors. She could jump. If she was lucky, Hardy could catch her. 

“Hardy! Up here!” she yelled. 

But when Ellie reached the bedroom, there was more than just a window; half the wall was gone as if someone had been thrown through it. Claire laughed and blocked the gaping hole before Ellie could even consider following Hardy. 

“Fine,” Ellie ground out, forcing a smile. “Let’s have some fun.”

She picked up the nearest bottle of wine and smashed it in Claire’s face. The glass broke upon impact. Ellie was shocked that Claire hadn't bothered blocking it. She tried to make a dash for the stairs again, but the vampire moved with her.

“You’re not special to him,” she snarled at Ellie, wiping one of the bloody cuts on her face. “Alec’s using you. He’ll bleed you dry once he gets what he needs.”

Ellie ignored her, feinted left, and then went right, but Claire was calculating her moves before she made them.

“He’ll persuade you to marry him to make it legal, and then he’ll start grooming your children.”

Ellie’s heart stumbled in her chest at the word _grooming_. Memories of Joe with Danny were replaced by Hardy smearing blood on Fred’s forehead; Hardy cuddling with Fred in the hotel bed; Hardy playing with her son in the bungalow. Ellie had thought it was sweet how he’d taken to Fred so quickly and how enamoured Fred was with their vampire, but doubts were now flooding her mind. 

Claire caught the minute changes in Ellie’s expression and her eyes went wide.

“Oh, god, he’s already Marked them, hasn't he?” Claire gasped. “He's a _monster_ , Ellie, your children will never be safe.”

Ellie was still holding the neck of the wine bottle, but now she gave up on getting past Claire, eyeing the jagged end. Hardy’s wife had to be in her sixties and Jocelyn was even older, of course he'd need a new guardian soon. And she'd let him come right into her flat and Mark her baby with god only knew what kind of symbol. He said it was for their protection and he’d promised he’d never let anyone harm her, but after Joe and all the barbaric vampires she'd met, could Ellie really trust him?

“You can't trust him, Ellie,” Claire told her, laying a gentle hand on her arm, “You don't even know what he did to his own daughter.”

That snagged her attention and nearly snapped her out of whatever effect Claire’s honeyed Welsh accent had on her. 

“I know what happened to her,” Ellie informed her, “And I know who’s to blame.” She took a run at Claire, but the vampire caught her, waltzing them through the gap into thin air.

Ellie’s scream was sucked out of her as Claire leapt forward, straight into a solid brick wall. 

* 

Hardy fell two stories and crashed into the yellow skip bin that had been inconveniently placed there for the imminent demolition. A fall like that wouldn’t have had an impact on a vampire, if Kim hadn’t drained most of his blood and Claire hadn’t broken his leg with a well-placed kick. Hardy healed fast, but he needed a minute to set the bloody bone properly. 

“Hardy! Up here!”

A minute he didn’t have right now. 

Hardy tried to stand and the pain was so bad, his vision whited out. Collapsing into the rubbish, he struggled to straighten out his leg that was twisted at a nasty angle. In that moment, he dearly missed Tess. Over twenty years later and Hardy still got squeamish about this sort of thing. If he could just-

_BANG!_

The skip bin jolted and rattled. Hardy looked up, but it wasn’t Claire who peeked in at him. 

“Bloody hell,” he groaned. 

Kim ripped off the remaining handcuff and threw it like a javelin. The handcuff bounced off the side of the skip bin and struck Hardy’s left eyebrow. Then Kim launched herself into the bin. There was nothing wrong with his arms and he batted her away, sending her flying. But Kim came right back, buzzing like an angry wasp. 

“I don’t have time for this,” Hardy sighed as she flew at him again. 

This time Hardy was prepared for her. Using his weight to his advantage, he leaned back and flipped the skip bin over. The rubbish shifted with them, raining down around them and getting in Hardy’s way. Kim was so tiny she slipped right through his hands. 

And then something chomped down on his injured leg. 

Hardy swore colourfully as pain radiated up from the injury. He _detested_ fledglings. They were worse than toddlers. Hardy reached down and grabbed Kim by her long hair, yanking her off of him.

He knocked the skip bin aside and they blinked in the sudden onslaught of light.

Kim’s mouth was smeared with his blood, but she looked rather pleased with herself as he held her at bay. Hardy’s leg hurt so bad that he was tempted to snap her neck, but even though she had him at a disadvantage, Kim wasn’t trying to kill him. 

And Hardy needed help. 

“Claire hurt my daughter too,” he told her, gentling his voice.

Kim’s smugness evaporated, as she struggled to translate. 

“Ellie?” She frowned, confused. “Ellie’s your…?”

“No, God, no,” Hardy sputtered. He was old enough to be Ellie’s father, but there was nothing paternal about his feelings. “But Ellie needs our help. Ellie’s-”

Kim said something in Vietnamese and tapped the front of her black T-shirt. When Hardy stared at her blankly, she reached out and tapped his sternum, right over the shrivelled remains of his human heart.

“Ellie,” she said, nodding as if her mind had been made up. Her mischievous smile startled him into dropping her. She went straight for his leg and Hardy suffered through another starburst of pain. 

“Done,” Kim announced, clapping her hands together. 

She helped him up and this time Hardy’s foot bore the weight. She’d reset the bone for him, more efficiently than he could’ve done himself. Kim cocked her head to one side, her nostrils flaring, and Hardy clamped a hand down on her shoulder. 

“If you hurt Ellie, I’ll have to hurt you,” he warned her.

Kim vanished in an instant. As Hardy followed Miller’s thudding heartbeat, he wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake. 

Or if he was too late. 

*

Claire caught a foot on the ledge and levered them upwards onto the roof. She leapt from rooftop to rooftop with Ellie clinging helplessly to her as the world whipped past them and blurred over two stories below. The fall might not kill Ellie, but it could leave her with a broken back or a broken skull. 

Finally, when Ellie thought she couldn’t hang on any longer, Claire jumped down. They burst through brick and mortar, sprawling on the grimy floor of a nearly identical two-family to the one Ricky and Cate had once owned. The attic was dirtier and stank of something rotten. Ellie would’ve preferred dying in the clean loo with the creepy skylight. But although Ellie ached all over, Claire had protected her from the impact. 

The fact that she’d shielded her scared Ellie more than if the vampire had dropped her off the side of the building. Clearly Claire wanted Hardy to be a witness to Ellie’s demise, but did she want to kill her or did she want to turn her? Whatever Claire had planned, it didn’t bode well for Ellie. 

“Hardy’s a murderer,” Claire said as Ellie struggled to catch her breath. 

“So are you,” she argued, reaching for the neck of the wine bottle she’d dropped.

“I was trying to save them,” Claire defended herself, pressing a hand to her belly as if she still felt an echo of all the unborn babies she’d carried, “Those poor children were terminally ill.”

“That’s not true.” Ellie didn’t want to believe it, but Ricky had confirmed that Pippa had Leukaemia. 

“What about Lisa?” she asked and Claire turned away from her. 

“That was all my Mate,” she said softly. Claire’s spine straightened and her hands curled into fists. Ellie heard the genuine anger and jealousy when she spoke, “He’s never been faithful to me, but he always tried to clean up the mess, as if I wouldn’t find out about that _slut_ or any of the others,” she sneered and faced Ellie. 

“Lisa wasn’t a Saint. She wanted Lee.”

Ellie’s head spun, but the pieces of the picture were slotting together perfectly, too perfectly. She gripped the neck of the broken wine bottle and tried to remember why she was talking to Claire in the first place. 

“But why Hardy?” she asked.

Claire’s face contorted and then smoothed out into an expression that bore a little too much regret to be believable. 

“You’ve met Lisa. Hardy’s daughter was only seventeen, but Lee has a weakness for pretty blondes,” she confessed. “I tried to warn Hardy, but he wouldn’t listen and now he blames me.” 

Her eyes flashed with a level of rage that alarmed Ellie. 

“I knew he’d been a Wraith for Alistair Murray,” she explained, barely able to keep her voice even. “Murray could’ve helped me escape Lee, but Hardy wouldn’t take me seriously.” Claire was on the verge of losing control as she told Ellie, “Hardy would still be human and we could’ve saved the lives of four more young women, if he hadn’t been so prejudiced against vampires.” 

Claire unconsciously lifted her hand to her barren womb as if there was an emptiness about her that could never be filled. Ellie did sympathize with her, but the sympathy didn’t blind her to the truth.

“What about Kim?”

Claire blinked as if she’d forgotten Ellie was there. 

“Who?”

“The girl you’re keeping upstairs,” Ellie prompted her and some recognition surfaced in Claire’s eyes. “She’s not Lee’s type, but she could’ve been mistaken for a child,” Ellie theorized. “Did Lee bring her home as a gift to you?”

Claire narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing her. 

“Have you seen the micro-chip in Hardy’s arm?” Claire interrogated her, ignoring her question and dismissing Kim’s existence. This time Ellie recognized the moment Claire’s voice took on a velvety smoothness and the strain it put on her to apply the extra effort. It wasn’t an ability that came as naturally to her as Baxter or Lee. 

“He’s a tool for the Institute, Ellie, you can’t trust him.”

Strangely, Claire was better at lying when she didn’t turn on an excessive amount of Charm. 

“He’s a criminal, Ellie,” Claire went on bitterly, “He escaped his facility when he was fledgling to go on a killing spree. Any other vampire who committed that many atrocities would’ve been executed without a trial,” she bit off, unable to keep her jealousy and wrath in check. “And now he’s parading around as a Detective Inspector and slaughtering fledglings, while the rest of us are forced to hide in the dark.” Claire’s eyes blazed brighter with a fiery rage Ellie regretted sparking. 

“The Institute handpicked DI Hardy to rise, but they never saw the Alec that I knew,” she claimed, her eyes brightening with more of the savage fury that Ellie had only glimpsed a few times in Hardy. “He wants revenge on them, on us, on humanity, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it.” Claire was working herself up into an apoplectic fit; Ellie had to put an end to it before she lashed out at her. 

“You and your children mean _nothing_ to him, you’re just a means to an end. He’ll start feeding on you more frequently and adjusting your memories-” 

“No,” Ellie’s voice came out broken as she struggled to her feet. “He wouldn’t.”

“Ellie,” Claire helped her up and tucked a curl behind Ellie’s ear. “I’m so sorry, he’ll do it slowly, so slowly you’ll never notice, but he’s going to bleed you and your sons dry.”

Ellie let the tears fall and she let Claire see them. Claire shook her head and pulled Ellie a step closer. 

“He trusts you, Ellie,” she reminded her. “He thinks you’re still under his spell. But you watched him change when he fed on you and claimed you for himself.” She traced one of the territorial Marks on Ellie’s cheek. “You know deep down that he’s nothing but a soulless beast.”

Ellie shook her head and cried harder. Claire cooed and stroked her hair. 

“I can help you. We won’t let him hurt your sons. All you need to do-”

Ellie didn't let her finish the thought, driving the jagged end of the wine bottle straight into Claire’s heart. The vampire gasped and Ellie twisted the glass in deeper.

_Please_ , she prayed to whatever God was listening, _please let it be enough this time_. 

Ellie felt Claire’s hand close over her wrist. Desperately, she tried to hang on and drive it in at an even deeper angle, but she was no match for a vampire’s strength. Claire shook her off like a ragdoll and laughed as she slammed into stacked pile of crates. The crates toppled, strewing across Claire’s path and providing a moment’s protection for Ellie. 

“You daft cow, he doesn’t care about you, he’s incapable of love-” Claire broke off. Ellie looked up, anticipating Hardy, but he wasn’t alone. 

A dark blur was zipping and whirling around Claire, so fast that it made Ellie dizzy. 

“Is that-?”

“Aye,” Hardy grunted, limping over to her and tossing aside the crates. 

“I thought you knocked her out and put her in the boot.”

“Me too,” he griped. 

Grabbing Ellie’s hand, he towed her toward the stairs. 

But Claire flung Kim right into their path. 

The tiny vampire got stuck in the wall; plaster, insulation and decades of dust exploded in the air before them, momentarily blinding them. Ellie’s eyes were still smarting from the shattered skylight and watering from the tears. She sneezed twice and Hardy almost dislocated her shoulder. 

Claire pounced on Hardy, ripping him away from Ellie. The two vampires tumbled down the stairs in a vicious brawl. 

Ellie ran back upstairs and checked on Kim who was unconscious again. Ellie didn’t know if it was from the morphine or a possible concussion, but she risked dragging the fledgling out of her painful position. She was so light, Ellie carried her up the few steps to the attic. Kim stirred but didn’t wake as Ellie laid her down on the floor. 

And then the wall next to them detonated like a bomb. 

Ellie ducked, instinctively throwing herself on top of Kim as a brick skimmed her left ear and another nicked her shoulder. 

Her ear was ringing and her vision was blurring again as the vampire strolled out of the wreckage unharmed. The attic took on a nightmarish unrealistic filter as Ellie scuttled out of the monster’s path. But this wasn’t a nightmare she would wake up from. 

Claire was dusted with plaster and shavings of brick, but looked no worse for wear, save for the one bloody splotch where Ellie had tried to stake her with a smashed wine bottle. A futile weapon that was by her feet again. 

Claire kicked Kim away as if the fledgling she’d sired was a piece of rubbish.

Any sympathy Ellie might’ve had left for Claire was gone.

“What’s so special about you?” the vampire demanded, circling her. 

Ellie tripped over Kim’s skinny arm, falling onto her backside, and scrambling for the jagged end of the wine bottle. If this was the end, Ellie wasn’t going down without a fight. 

Claire loomed over her, smirking. 

“You’re not young,” she said with a condescending once-over, adding cruelly, “You’re not pretty.” 

Claire was suddenly behind her and Ellie leapt to her feet. 

“You’re not even that bright,” the vampire sneered, grabbing Ellie by the throat and slamming her up against the wall. “What have _you_ got that _I_ don’t have?” she demanded. 

“A heart,” Ellie choked out, scrabbling at the hand at her throat. “And two children.”

“You’ll never see them again,” Claire snarled. 

“You’re wrong,” Ellie spat in the vampire’s face and drove the jagged end of the wine bottle into Claire’s open wound that hadn’t had time to heal. 

Claire shoved Ellie into the wall so hard that it cracked and split. 

“He’ll _never_ love you,” Claire hissed, enraged. “He has no heart.” 

Ellie cried out as the edge of a broken beam and a bent nail tore through her clothes, skin and muscle, but she focused all of her remaining strength on splintering Claire’s heart.

“You’ve never known love,” Ellie realized, and her pity was worse than anything she could’ve wielded against the vampire. 

Claire loved all her unborn children _ferociously_ , but no one had ever loved her. Her husband had been abusive and her Mate hadn’t been able to cope with the post-partum depression and grief. Over the decades that emptiness in Claire’s heart had grown. She’d tried so hard to fill it with a child, but with each child she’d murdered, she’d lost another piece of her soul. 

“I’m sorry, Claire,” Ellie apologized, wondering if this was how Hardy felt whenever he took a life. “I really am.”

Claire coughed up blood and clawed at Ellie’s wrist, trying to pull her hand away from the organ that had probably shrivelled up the moment she lost her last baby and sold her soul to a devil. Ellie shoved the glass in deeper, ripping through decades of blackened scar tissue.

“This is for Hardy’s daughter,” she told Claire and gave her one more stab.

And Claire _screamed_.

The scream was worse than anything Ellie had ever heard, but the silence afterward was awful. Ellie let go of Claire and the vampire collapsed at her feet. 

_Lifeless_. 

Ellie stared at her bloody hand and the mood ring caked in blood. The room started to fade in and out as Claire’s throwaway lines kept whispering and ricocheting in her skull. The ringing in her ears got louder as the unsettling silence seeped into the attic and into her head.

_He’s grooming them. Your children will never be safe. You don’t even know what he did to his own daughter. He escaped a facility to go on a killing spree. He’ll never love you._

“Ellie?”

Ellie cracked open an eye, but Hardy hadn’t come for her. She gazed into Kim’s bloodless face and she knew it was only a matter of time before the creature lost her valiant battle with her hunger.

“Don’t come near me,” she hissed and Kim tripped backwards, her eyes wide and dilated. 

Where the _fuck_ was Hardy? She wasn’t certain she could trust him, but Ellie didn’t want to think about what Claire might’ve done to him. 

“I’m okay,” Ellie mumbled and dragged herself behind one of the damaged crates. 

Kim plugged her nose and disappeared, but she’d be back. The fledgling wouldn’t be able to stop herself. 

Helplessly, Ellie curled up and pressed her face into her arm as a sharp stabbing pain shot up her left side. Blood soaked through her shredded jumper and her ripped jeans as Tom and Fred’s faces appeared before her like a mirage. 

“I’m okay,” she insisted to them. “I’m – I’m o-o-kay.” 

She tried so hard to hold on for them, but she could feel herself falling apart and slipping away as her own dark blood puddled around her, leaving behind a stain that no amount of soap, water or tears would ever wash away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Claire was a very hard character for me to write, but judging from the way she was portrayed in the show I wanted the fight between Ellie and Claire to be more of a psychological one. Obviously she's different in this AU and has been shaped into a different character by those experiences. Thanks y'all for reading and commenting!


	17. A Wound that Festers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire may be gone, but Ellie's fight for her life is nowhere near over...

“Up! _UP_!”

Something smacked against his cheek, and Hardy felt his jaw crack back into place. A wild-eyed fledgling spun into view along with the broken bits of the door to the oven that he’d been shoved into. Shards of glass scattered as Hardy struggled to move. 

“Ellie!” Kim exclaimed between a string of Vietnamese words. She tugged at Hardy’s arm so hard she popped the limb out of its socket again. 

“Is she okay?” Hardy demanded. 

Kim pointed upstairs, but he grabbed her before she could disappear on him. 

“Get the first aid kit,” Hardy instructed her and she blinked at him. “Medicine? Bandages?” Recognition dawned on her, and she nodded eagerly. 

“Wait.” 

Hardy reopened the slash on his wrist, offering her some more incentive. Kim didn’t lose control this time, only taking enough to hold her over in case she encountered any humans.

“You get more if you bring the medicine back,” he bargained with her. 

As soon as he released her, she ran off. Hardy hoped she’d at least get the first aid kit for Ellie before she made her escape. 

Half the bones in his body had to be broken, Hardy was certain of it. He had to crawl down the hall and up the steps. His body protested every inch of progress he made. He doubted Claire knew how close she’d come to snuffing out his existence. His neck was throbbing right along with everything else, but something had stopped her before she’d completed the break that would’ve finished him. He didn’t want to question it, but he worried about what had happened to Miller. 

Claire must’ve realized that Hardy didn’t fear death as much as he feared losing Ellie Miller. She wouldn’t have wanted him to die without knowing what she’d done to Miller. 

Hardy was forced to set a few necessary bones back into place, before he was able to conquer the remaining stairs.

The scent of blood was intoxicating, but when he saw her curled up and bleeding, his damaged human heart lurched in his chest. Miller was so pale and there was too much blood. Hardy’s panic hit him like a tidal wave, drowning all of his vampire instincts out. 

For a split second he was back in the blood-spattered snow, gazing down at his darling daughter as his worst nightmare came to life. 

Hardy tried to run to her and his reinjured leg buckled underneath him. The jarring impact of him hitting the floor, brought him crashing back down to reality. 

And a vision that was disconcertingly similar to his nightmares. 

Miller’s eyelids fluttered and Hardy breathed a sigh of relief. He tamped down on his panic and listened for her heartbeat. Her pulse was weaker, but it was still there. Normally he hated being able to hear it, but today her heartbeat was a symphony to his ears.

“I killed her,” she croaked.

“She died a long time ago,” Hardy murmured, stroking her cheek. Her skin was clammy and alarmingly cool. He had to brace himself to inspect the wound on her left side. 

There was so much blood, Hardy felt the prick of his fangs before he even touched it. 

“Hardy,” she rasped.

“You’re gonna be fine,” he reassured her and steeled himself to peel back her ruined jacket and jumper. His hands were shaking as splinters and a rusty nail came away with the fabric. 

Miller groaned, biting down on her arm to muffle her scream of pain. Hardy felt an answering twinge in his empty stomach. Pressing a hand against her spine, he pinned her in place.

“Don’t move,” he ordered her and hastily stripped off his coat and suit jacket. 

He balled up his suit jacket and pressed it against the wound, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop the flow of blood or to quench the feral thirst inside of him. This wasn’t the shallow cut of a kitchen knife that had already scabbed over. Hardy struggled to focus on his panic and his concern for her, but the worsening pain in his stomach was coupled by a pounding headache that hammered in tandem with Miller’s heartbeat.

“Where’s Kim?” she panted. 

“She’s getting the first aid kit and then we’re taking you to the hospital,” he soothed her, stroking her hair with his free hand. 

“You didn’t call for an ambulance?” Miller spluttered. 

It hadn’t even occurred to him. Hardy felt like a bloody moron. If he called them now, it wouldn’t get her there any faster. 

“I don’t magically heal, I bleed out!” she snapped. 

“I hadn’t noticed,” he deadpanned.

“Bloody useless vampire.” Sighing, she tried to move, but Hardy held her still. 

“Please, don’t move,” he pleaded with her as his self-control frayed, “I’m trying to help you, but you need to stay still.” Her scent wafted over him and his beastlier nature screamed at him to turn her now before she bled out. 

“You’re bleeding too,” she mumbled.

“Had to give Kim another dose,” he explained, applying more pressure to the wound that shouldn’t have made him salivate. “She won’t harm you,” he promised. 

Miller’s heart sped up a bit.

“You could stop the bleeding,” she said suddenly and he froze.

The seductive montage of the two of them Mated and in bed together, played through his mind; she’d be safe in his arms and forever by his side. He’d never have to lose her. 

And she’d resent him for eternity. 

“You want me to turn you now?” he choked out. 

“What? _No_!” she refused again. 

Hardy tried not to take it too personally, especially since Miller hadn’t grasped the severity of their current situation. 

Miller’s heart started to beat harder and Hardy wondered what was taking Kim so long. Miller’s blood had soaked through his suit jacket. He eyed the rusty nail painted with her blood; the wound was already infected.

Her blood could be poisoned, she could go into septic shock. 

“When Nige bit me,” Miller laboured to explain, “You closed up the wound.” 

It wasn’t just the words that were troubling her, Hardy noted that her breathing was more ragged. Septic shock couldn’t set in that rapidly, but Hardy was scared of how much blood she’d already lost.

“It’s not the same thing,” he started, but stopped, staring at his slashed wrist. 

Hardy lifted his wrist to his mouth, sealing up the laceration with a lick. He’d been taught that a vampire’s saliva could only seal up wounds that were vampire-inflicted, but he’d seen the closed doors of the labs in the Institute and he’d heard the screams. The World Health Organization had been bracing for a _human_ pandemic in December 1979 that had been eclipsed by the vampire epidemic that started with the lab breach on January 12th 1980. The deadly human virus strain had never surfaced, but the screams in the labs where vampires had been murdered had gotten louder as 1980 wiped out and caged all but a few of them. In those first years following the decimation of vampires, a number of vaccines had been created and untreatable human diseases had been miraculously cured.

What if there were healing properties in his saliva that helped clot the blood of humans and killed some infections?

“Hardy?” Miller whispered, sounding pained. She was definitely having trouble breathing and her heart was slowing again as her blood pressure dropped. 

“Everything’s gonna be okay,” he placated her. 

“Not. Helping,” she ground out. 

Hardy removed his stained suit jacket and his stomach churned at the sight of her injury. He wasn’t a doctor like Tess, but his heightened senses picked up on the slightest whiff of an infection. Hardy predicted that there could be some internal bleeding as well. With the amount of blood Miller had already lost, he didn’t know how she was still conscious. 

“I’m not sure if it’ll work,” he admitted, but there wasn’t much else he could do for her. 

“God’s sake… Hardy…” she whispered raggedly between pants, “Just… do it.”

And then she lost consciousness. 

“Ellie?”

Hardy shook her gently, but her heartbeat continued its steady but inevitable decline. He didn’t have time to question whether or not he could control himself. He couldn’t doublecheck with Miller to ensure that he had her consent. 

His eyes burned as he pushed up the hem of her jumper. He’d fantasized about kissing her here, but in those daydreams, they were both human and she was always smiling as he explored every inch of her body. 

A ruddy haze clouded his eyes. Hardy blinked back the blood-born tears as he lapped up some of the infected fluid around the wound. 

He started to shake as the monster within him awoke.

Hardy strained for control, but he hadn’t realized he’d been _starving_ until he tasted her blood again. He got greedier as the feral beast vied with what was left of his cracked moral compass. Hardy only wanted to close the wound, but his sanity was slipping further away as her blood became cleaner and headier. 

Slowly, Miller’s steady heartbeat diminished, becoming thready and feeble. 

Miller moaned, but Hardy couldn’t stop himself. His moral compass was trampled by the insatiable monster that possessed him. 

Something struck the back of his head and he whipped around snarling. Kim threw the bottle of bleach at him next, knocking some sense into him.

“Oh, God,” he whispered as he stared at the first aid kit that had torn him out of his bloodlust. 

Hardy pressed his hands to his eyes and wiped the blood from mouth: Miller’s blood. He felt sick to his stomach, but he hadn’t finished. 

Trembling, he painstakingly licked at the edges of the wound, imagining that it was a bite he could solder. It was a Herculean feat to tear himself away from the siren of her blood sloshing and pumping through those precious chambers, but somehow Hardy managed it. 

“Think I got the infection,” he told Kim, shamefully scraping a hand over his red-stained lips. Kim looked sceptical as he bandaged Miller’s wound. Miller barely stirred at all.

“Is Ellie okay?” Kim asked anxiously, sitting with the open bottle of bleach, a safe distance away. 

“We need to get her to a doctor,” he said thickly as more bloody tears gathered in his eyes. 

Hardy lifted Miller up and Kim crept over to lap up the pool of her blood. Hardy needed to get her some sustenance soon before he had another victim on his hands. 

Fortunately, Claire hadn’t slashed the tires of Miller’s car. Kim looked longingly at the driver’s seat and Hardy tossed her the keys. The girl’s face lit up like a seventeen-year-old who’d just been granted their first ticket to freedom. Hardy wondered how the bright-eyed teenager had ended up a vampire, cowering in a bathtub. 

“Don’t make me regret this,” he warned her. Kim saluted him before Hardy got into the backseat with Miller. 

“Drive to the closest hospital,” he ordered, belatedly realizing that there was another obstacle he hadn’t foreseen. 

Hardy didn’t know if Kim would understand his directions, but with a few taps on the SATNAV, Kim had impressively changed the language from English to Vietnamese and was well on her way to Royal Mercia Hospital.

Hardy cradled Miller’s head in his lap, keeping her as comfortable and as still as possible. Kim was a formidable force behind the wheel; driving required her full attention and seemed to help her forget the beast inside of her. At least for a little while. 

Or maybe that was the bleach she’d doused them with before they got into a vehicle with a bleeding human. 

Hardy traced the Marks on Miller’s face as he dammed up the tears behind his eyes. He’d sworn to protect her, but he’d nearly gotten her killed again and then he’d almost exsanguinated her. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered to her, while Kim was distracted by a roundabout. 

After the first slip, he’d thought he’d built up an immunity to her blood.

But with every taste, he selfishly craved more of her. 

It was time for him to stop being so self-centred. 

Hardy dug out his phone and made the call he’d been avoiding, ever since he’d been released from the facility. 

*

Ellie Miller felt heavier in his arms than the last time he’d carried her into A&E, or perhaps it was the heavy cross of his guilt that weighed down the woman who had never seemed more fragile than she did now. 

Hardy had slashed open his wrist again for Kim and had left her in the car with the bleach. He had no doubt she’d drive around to keep her hunger in check, but she seemed worried enough about Ellie that he hoped she’d stay close.

Being in Royal Mercia brought back memories of the last time he’d been here. Memories, Hardy didn’t want to think about. Especially not now when the thought of turning Miller was still at the forefront of his mind. 

And yet there was something calming and reassuring when a familiar face came out of A&E to meet them at the double doors. 

Over forty years had passed since the day he’d first laid eyes on her, but she was still beautiful, even after all those years they spent trapped within a tragic implosion of their own making. 

“Alec?” she whispered disbelievingly, brushing a strand of grey hair from her eyes. 

“It’s me,” he assured her. Whatever shell-shock had temporarily possessed her, left with a shake of her head. 

“You’ve got some nerve coming back here,” she hissed, “I should have you executed-”

“You want to do this now?” he interrupted her, getting in her face, “There are three of your colleagues watching and I’ve got a woman who needs _immediate_ medical attention.”

Doctor Henchard gave Ellie Miller a cursory glance, clocking the only thing that did not need her attention. 

“Oh, no. I’m not getting involved.” She shook her head and backed away from them. Signalling to one of the A&E nurses to get a stretcher, she whipped out a phone. “You can go to the University – I’ll even get her transport-”

Hardy wanted to strangle the obstinate woman, even after all these decades, she was still finding new ways to punish him. Knocking the phone aside, he got in front of her. 

“She needs help. _Now_.”

“Are you threatening me, Alec?” she demanded, narrowing her eyes. 

“No. I’m begging you, Tess,” he said softly. “I _need_ Miller to be alright,” he confessed, “And there’s no one I trust more than you to keep her alive.”

Tess searched his face as a team of nurses and another woman in a white coat came running out to them with the stretcher. 

“You can’t stay,” she said, but Hardy clung to Miller, even as the trauma team waited. 

“She’s in grave danger. I’ll need a private room on the top floor and six pints of blood to oversee her recovery and safety,” he said, low enough for her ears only. When she hesitated, he hissed, “I’m sure you remember what happened to _our_ daughter while you were busy shagging Doctor Dave.” 

“You wouldn’t,” she gasped. 

“Stay out of my way, Tess, or I’ll ruin more than your precious reputation.” 

Tess capitulated and Hardy laid Miller out on the stretcher that was immediately whisked away. Doctor Henchard adjusted her stethoscope, hesitating at the double doors.

“She’ll be alright, Alec,” she assured him. 

And then Hardy was alone in the waiting area with his blood-stained hands, his aching heart, and all of his worst memories. 

*

Twenty-three years earlier, Hardy had stood in the same waiting area with Tess Henchard when her hair had still been brown and longer. There were other people in the waiting area, all observing her white coat and watching her hopefully. That was the only reason why she was standing close enough to Hardy that he could see the tears glistening in her eyes and smell her new perfume, gifted to her by another man. 

“Are you sure you burned all the poison out?” she asked him for the nth time. 

“I’m certain,” Hardy said, “Nearly certain,” he mollified as Tess’s red-rimmed eyes bored into his. “As long as you arranged for a triple dose of the antidote that I asked for, she’ll recover,” he added. 

“She’s only a teenager, an overdose like that could kill her,” Tess argued, her nails biting into the fabric of her bloodstained white coat. Hardy felt sick every time he looked at it, trying not to think about the stains on his own clothing. 

“She was bitten by a vampire,” Hardy hissed. 

“You interrupted them,” she argued, stubbornly refusing to see the truth. “You have no evidence that they tried to turn her.” She held up a hand before he could argue with her, ticking off her fingers. “Her heart’s still beating, her lungs are still functioning; she exhibits none of the typical post-mortem signs or symptoms.”

“I know you’re the medical expert,” he acknowledged, struggling to keep his temper in check, “You want to believe that all ‘Wild’ vampires are locked up in facilities, but you have to trust me on this,” he pleaded with her, “I can feel it in my gut, Tess. If there were still vampirologists, we’d call one in for a consult-” Hardy broke off as he suddenly recollected Roche; coward, hapless vampire and formerly a top vampirologist for the Institute. 

The same vampire that Hardy had caught red-handed with Daisy’s blood on his hands only fourteen hours earlier. 

Red-hot wrath blazed through him, but his wife’s steadier hand on his arm helped him look past the rage for the first time. 

“What is it, Alec?”

“Get her the antidote,” he said again.

“Alec,” Tess started to protest, “No doctor is going to sign off on an illegal substance that potent. She’s only seventeen, if they think she’s been turned-”

Hardy pulled her close and kissed her for the first time in weeks, maybe even months. She softened in his arms, but there were tears streaking down her cheeks when she pulled away. Closing his eyes, he leaned his forehead against hers. 

“Please, love. _Please_ trust me,” he beseeched her, running his hands down her arms and forcing the words out. “Consult Doctor Dave.”

“Doctor _Davis_ ,” she corrected him, irritated and already closed off from him as he walked away.

“Where are you going?” she called after him. 

“I’ll be back soon,” he assured her. 

He stormed out of A&E and found the nearest payphone. He dialled Murray again before he recalled that the number had been disconnected months ago. He rang Jocelyn next. 

“I need everything you’ve got on the late Doctor Aaron Roche.”

“Hardy,” she sighed, “You know that I can’t give out that information, especially if the Institute faked his death-”

“My daughter’s in the ICU because someone bit her. She’s _dying_ , Jocelyn,” Hardy snarled and Jocelyn sucked in a sharp breath on the other end of the line.

“Roche was at my house when I found her,” he pressed between clenched teeth, “I want all the info you have on him.”

“I’m so sorry, Alec,” she apologized, “But you need to contact-”

“Murray’s gone, Jocelyn,” Hardy’s voice broke as he admitted the truth he’d been fighting since he found Daisy in the snow earlier. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of him for weeks. Ever since Lee Ashworth popped up on my bloody radar-”

“Lee Ashworth?” There was a hint of fear in her voice. “Hardy, he’s one of the Institute’s darlings.”

“He tried to sire a _child_ , Jocelyn.” His voice wavered. “I had to drag her body out of the water.” Jocelyn was speechless. 

“Jocelyn, I’m not asking you to break any privacy laws or contracts.” Hardy pinched the bridge of his nose and strove to remain clear-headed. “I want to consult Roche, and since I’ve spared his life _twice_ now,” he ground out, cursing his own stupidity, “I think I’m entitled to a wee bit of information that could save my daughter’s life.”

Jocelyn was silent on the other end of the line. Hardy shoved another coin into the slot while she carefully weighed their options and the legal consequences. 

“If you’re planning on attacking Roche or Lee Ashworth, I can’t help you, Hardy.”

“I just want to save my daughter’s life.” His voice cracked.

Jocelyn asked him if he had a pen and paper handy. Hardy scribbled down the two possible addresses as well as the contact information for Roche’s legal guardian and a former employer if the addresses didn’t pan out. 

“You’re a star. Tell your journalist, I owe her one.”

“She’s not _my_ journalist,” Jocelyn protested a little too strongly, but Hardy had already hung up. 

Hardy gazed up at the bright window where Daisy lay in a medically induced coma until they could figure out how to properly treat her. Tess had come home shortly after him and had called in the entire calvary, barking orders like a drill sergeant until they had Daisy stabilized upstairs. Tess had been brilliant and their brave little girl was tenaciously hanging on; but Hardy feared it wasn’t enough. 

Shoving his hand into his pocket, Hardy wound his fingers round the Celtic Cross that was still warm and painted with flecks of Daisy’s dried blood.

“I need a little more time, Dais,” he whispered as if she could somehow hear him from all the way down here. “We’ll find a way to fix you, darling, I promise. Don’t let go until I come back, alright?” 

A gust of wind blew some snow off the top of the telephone box; flurries spiralled down around him. The snow kissed his face, melting and mixing with his tears. Hardy took one last look at the room where Daisy was battling for her life and for her humanity, then he walked back to his car and drove away to make a pact with the devil.

*

“Alec?”

Hardy was startled out of his reverie by a steadying hand on his arm. The people in the waiting area all hid their grief, shock and exhaustion behind the phone glued to their palms, but not much else had changed since the last time he’d been here. Even the smiley receptionist and the faded NHS posters looked the same. 

“Alec,” Tess said again and he moved for the first time in over two and half hours. 

“How is she?”

“We had to stitch her up and give her a blood transfusion and some antibiotics, but Ellie Miller’s going to be fine,” she assured him. 

Hardy’s legs gave out on him. Overcome with relief, he collapsed in one of the plastic chairs and lowered his head into his hands. 

Tess only spared him a few moments, before she was dragging him out of the chair and into the lift. As soon as the doors slid shut behind them, she jabbed at one of the buttons, stopping the elevator between floors.

“Did you attack her?”

“No,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Alec,” she growled and he bit down on his trembling lower lip. 

“It was Claire Ripley,” he admitted and her eyes widened.

“The vampire who you think is responsible for what happened to _our_ daughter-” She cupped a hand over her mouth, horrified as he confirmed it with a nod. Then a crease formed in her brow as her brilliant mind revved up. 

“The bite on Ellie’s neck happened months ago…” she realized, frowning, “That wasn’t Claire…” 

Hardy stared over her head at the mirrored wall. 

“Was it you?” Tess surmised. Hardy tried to keep his face blank, but becoming a vampire didn’t mean that he’d lost all the tells that Tess had filed away for anytime they had a row. 

“Alec,” she hissed. “Answer me. I need to know what kind of monster I just let into my Hospital-”

“She’s a donor,” he fibbed, although the truth wasn’t that far off. Ellie had volunteered. Sort of. 

“Ask her if you don’t believe me,” he said brazenly. “I had her consent, both times.”

“ _Both_?” Tess never missed anything. 

Hardy banged his head against the wall of the lift, dislodging her finger from the button. As the lift started to rise again, he blurted out a truncated version of what he’d done after he’d found Ellie bleeding in the attic. Tess stared at him for a long moment, and then her eyes drifted inward as if she was mentally reviewing Ellie’s chart again.

“ _You_ stopped the bleeding,” Tess murmured, fiddling with her stethoscope, “That would explain everything.” 

The doors to the lift started to open, but Hardy stabbed at another button until the doors closed again. 

“Explain what?” he asked, feeling as if he’d hit the wrong button and had plummeted them down the lift shaft. 

“Tess?” His voice shook as he voiced the dreaded question. “I didn’t t-turn her?”

“No,” Tess said softly. “The preliminary lab results were negative. She’s recovering unexpectantly well, but she’s still completely human.”

“Thank Christ,” Hardy sighed. “Fledglings are worse than a toddler.”

Tess’s eyes shimmered for a moment, reflecting the shared grief between them. They might’ve been grandparents by now - showing off pictures of a rosy-cheeked bairn with Daisy’s eyes and her same penchant for creating chaos - if he hadn’t stumbled upon Lee Ashworth and Claire Ripley in Sandbrook and acted so recklessly. 

“I miss her too,” he confessed, but it was the wrong thing to say. Tess’s face hardened and the festering wound he felt every day, smouldered in her unforgiving eyes. 

The lift doors sprung open and she silently led him to the private room he’d insisted upon. There were six pints of blood too, just like he’d requested. Hardy and Tess had spent most of their marriage not speaking and apart, but he remembered that every compromise on her part came with a steep price. 

Hardy would willingly pay it. 

Ellie Miller’s heartbeat was strong again, even under the heavy sedation that was assisting with her recovery. Hardy covered her smaller hand with his, revelling in the natural warmth of her skin. He bent closer, tracing over his blood-sworn promise to protect her.

Tears sprung to his eyes and he forced himself to take a step back, because there was no greater danger to her than himself. 

“Thank you,” he told Tess, “For helping her.”

“I’m rescinding my guardianship,” Tess announced.

“I know,” Hardy sighed, rubbing at his burning eyes. 

He’d been dodging her calls for months. He knew the Institute could get him another legal guardian, but now more than ever Hardy needed someone he could fully trust. There was only one other person who fit that requirement.

But if Hardy asked Miller to be his legal guardian, there couldn’t be anymore secrets between them.

He’d have to tell her about Dinora.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the cringe-worthy lack of medical knowledge. Sepsis is a deadly, hidden killer responsible for so many deaths worldwide (especially in hospitals, yikes). Hopefully that explains Hardy's priorities being a bit out of order. Thanks y'all for the kudos, bookmarks, subscriptions, and comments!


	18. A Whisper that Shakes the Foundation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claire's warnings shake Ellie's trust in Hardy, but Doctor Tess Henchard might be able to help her unlock the truth.

When Ellie opened her eyes, the light was so blindingly bright that she thought she’d bled out and died in the attic. A woman clothed in white leaned over her, her head haloed by the light and a fashionable crown of grey hair. She slipped on a pair of spectacles, squinting at Ellie over the rims. Ellie wondered if she was an angel, until a familiar haggard face edged into the frame, casting a shadow and bringing the rest of the hospital scene into sharper relief. 

“C’mon Tess,” Ellie heard Hardy say, “Be reasonable.”

Ellie shut her eyes against the lights, trying to sink back into the fog of painless oblivion. 

“You should’ve taken her to another hospital, if you expected special treatment,” a feminine voice replied with light hints of Scottish origins. 

“You were closer,” Hardy grunted. 

“I’m not stupid, Alec. If anyone finds out I didn’t report you for feeding on her, I could lose my medical license.”

“For God’s sake, Tess. It’s not just my bloody career on the line. They’ll execute me.”

Ellie heard a moan that she realized belatedly must’ve been coming from her. The doctor, Tess, had tried to be gentle when she examined her, but the sedation was obviously wearing off. 

“You shouldn’t be here, Alec, it’s a Class VP-A offense for you to be present in a hospital,” Tess hissed.

“Or any other public building,” Hardy added resentfully. 

“Alec, I’m serious.”

“So am I,” he argued, “Miller staked Lee Ashworth’s _Mate_. I’m not leaving her side until I’ve watched his body burn.”

“Bloody hell, Alec,” Tess swore, her voice becoming shriller with fear. “You’ve recklessly endangered the lives of everyone in this hospital. He’ll come for me next.”

“No, he won’t,” Hardy growled. Blearily, Ellie peered up at him through half-lidded eyes. His face softened as their eyes met and he pleaded with Tess. “Help her, love, please.”

“Did you just call me love?” Tess asked, sounding amused.

Hardy cursed under his breath and paced out of sight. 

“Alright,” Tess agreed. “She can remain here. I won’t report the incident, but only under two conditions.”

“Anything,” Hardy agreed, coming back into Ellie’s line of sight. He touched her forehead with the backs of his fingers; his skin cool and reassuringly familiar against hers. 

“You sign off on the termination of guardianship and the divorce papers,” Tess bargained with him.

“Fine,” Hardy said without looking away from Ellie. 

Tess switched off the bright light and murmured something to Hardy. Ellie strained to focus on him, but his shadowed face and all the words in the English language kept swimming away from her. 

“Shh,” he hushed her. “Tom and Fred are fine,” he reassured her. “You sister rang, demanding more money, I’ll pay her another two hundred quid to keep them for a few more days.”

Relief and shame crashed over her. She missed them so bloody much, but right now they were safer away from her. She was a bad Mum and they deserved so much better. 

“I want to see them,” she slurred, but he shook his head. 

“Too dangerous,” he whispered and Ellie felt a stabbing pain that had nothing to do with her injury. A poisonous whisper echoed through her mind, warning her that Hardy was subtly taking control of her life and the lives of her children. 

“I need them here,” she growled, but it was too difficult for Ellie to express and hang onto her anger with the sedation being pumped through her bloodstream. 

“Soon,” Hardy promised, squeezing her hand. “As soon as you’re better. I’ll take you home and then we’ll go see them together, alright?”

_No, it wasn’t alright_ , Ellie wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t remember why as she lost her battle with consciousness and succumbed to the sedation. 

*

That night she drifted in and out of consciousness. The throbbing pain and the echoes of a trauma she had yet to fully process, burrowed into her subconscious and wove dangerous nightmares that felt so terrifyingly real. Hardy took her away from her children and started to feed on her regularly. She finally escaped to Broadchurch, only to discover Joe had claimed her boys in her absence. And then Ashworth murdered Tom and Fred in front of her because she hadn’t been there to protect them. 

Ellie woke crying and flinched away from the gelid touch of someone who didn’t have a beating heart. Hardy had to hold her down so she wouldn’t do more damage to the stitches and bandaging. She cried harder as her helpless frustration built up. 

“Don’t touch me,” she gasped between sobs. 

“You need to stay still.”

Ellie froze as the words unearthed a memory that had gotten lost in the cloud of pain.

“Get away from me,” she said coldly.

Ellie rolled onto her side, stretching and straining her new stitches, but she needed to see the bastard properly. Hardy reached for her, but something in her stony glare prevented him from stopping her. He held his palms aloft and backed away.

“You were having a nightmare,” he said gently. “It wasn’t real.”

A sob bubbled up in her throat, because the vampire she’d seen, drenched in blood and greedily drinking from her wasn’t something she’d dreamed. He was right here, wearing a shirt spattered with her blood.

“Is that mine?” She motioned to the copper stains on his oxford. Hardy blinked and glanced down at himself. 

“’Course it’s yours,” he snapped, his eyes glistening with unshed tears and remorse. “Don’t you remember?”

“You fed on me.”

“You told me to seal off the wound,” he claimed and Ellie recollected the other half of the unfinished picture. 

“I thought you could handle it,” she said snidely.

“I’m a _blood-sucker_ ,” he spat the hateful slur with all of his self-loathing, “There’s a reason we don’t go around licking people’s wounds. If Kim hadn’t thrown the first aid kit at me-” His voice cracked and he dissolved into tears. Ruby red streaks carved a path through the pale skin of his cheeks, dribbling into his beard.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered raggedly. With those horrid painted streaks on his face, he looking every bit the monster people believed him to be. And yet Ellie felt a seed of pity deep within her heart that was threatening to grow into something she didn’t want to put into words. 

Uncomfortable, her eyes skipped past him to the tray.

“Are those grapes?” 

“Seedless, so you can’t choke on the seeds,” he interjected, mopping at his face and making the blood smears worse. “Thought you might be hungry.”

“You brought me grapes?” she said incredulously. 

“What’s wrong with grapes?” he asked, affronted.

Ellie squeezed her eyes shut as the pain returned with a throbbing vengeance. She flinched a little when Hardy helped her lie on her belly and get more comfortable. As he fluffed up her pillows and tucked her in under the thin blankets, Claire’s insidious whispers were silenced.

For now. 

“Better?” he whispered, stroking her hair and lightly scratching between her shoulder blades. 

“ _Mm_.” Hardy stopped and she squawked in protest. The chair legs scraped across the floor and she hummed her approval when he started up again. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” Hardy asked hesitantly, but Ellie was already drifting off again. 

She woke again to a dull pain and the sound of two people whispering. Ellie hadn’t had any nightmares while Hardy rubbed her back, but there was a hushed and private undertone to Hardy’s discussion with his wife that Ellie didn’t want to disturb. She faked sleep. 

“How’s Dinora?” Tess wondered. 

“You can ask her yourself,” Hardy said roughly. 

The iPhone on the tray next to Ellie chirped and vibrated, drowning out Tess’s response and whatever Hardy hissed back at her. 

“I am _trying_ ,” Tess snarled, “But I’m human. I still have a beating heart, a life and a career to worry about. Unlike you.” 

“It seems like you’re the one lacking a beating heart,” Hardy said snidely. 

“My daughter _died_ , Alec,” Tess whispered, her voice wavering. “Daisy died in my arms. You didn’t birth her. You didn’t even know she existed until I was in labour.”

“I loved her from the moment I first held her in my arms,” Hardy insisted and Ellie could hear the tide of emotions reverberating in every syllable. “ _I_ raised her. _I_ changed the nappies. _I_ did the night feedings. She took her first steps with _me_. She spoke her first words to _me_. She used to dance on my toes and tell me how she wanted to dance at her own wedding. She used to tell me _everything_.” His voice was so raw that Ellie wished she could’ve stepped out of the room. 

“I missed out on a few years because of the epidemic and the riots,” he acknowledged, swallowing audibly, “But we both know, Tess, that _I_ was there when she was _begging_ me to save her life.”

The iPhone vibrated again, rattling the tray and drowning out what Tess and Hardy were saying. Their voices were rising steadily, Hardy’s Scottish accent becoming more prominent.

“Don’t talk about the moral high ground with me, Alec.”

“ _Me_ take the moral high ground? You went and built yourself a _bloody_ house there.”

“You show up with a woman on death’s doorstep, you’ve fed on. _Twice_. Why should I trust you?”

“Tess, you’re being unfair.”

“What you did, Alec, that was unfair,” Tess hissed. “You didn’t even tell me, when it should’ve been _my_ decision.”

“You were a bit _tied up_ ,” Hardy said dryly. “How is Doctor Dave by the way?”

“Doctor _Davis_. He died three years ago.”

“Sorry,” he apologized. 

“Don’t be, you were right, he was a prick,” Tess grudgingly admitted

“He didn’t have much of one if I remember correctly.”

“ _Alec_!” 

Tess smacked a smirking Hardy on the arm. The pair exchanged a small, fleeting smile. Flustered, Tess blushed and combed her grey hair out of her eyes. She had to be in her sixties, but she was still an attractive woman with a slender figure. 

“What about you?” Tess asked him. “Are you and Ellie-”

“No,” Hardy interrupted her and Ellie squeezed her eyes shut. 

“I thought that’s why you were ignoring my calls. I assumed you must’ve Mated with another vampire or-”

“No,” he coughed and cleared his throat. Ellie cracked open an eye to find Tess fluffing her hair.

“You haven’t aged at all. It’s so strange. I forgot you were handsome,” Tess complimented him and ducked her head. “I must seem like a hideous old hag to you,” she said, fiddling with her stethoscope. 

“Not at all,” Hardy murmured and touched her arm. His voice was almost inaudible, but Ellie heard him. “I miss you, Tess.”

“ _Alec_ ,” Tess whispered, stepping out of his reach and shaking her head. “You can’t change my mind on the divorce.”

“You know I don’t care if you divorce me,” he said, his brogue so rough and husky that Ellie felt a spark of jealousy that it wasn’t being directed at her. “I’ll pay you twice as much as what they offered, if you’ll just come with me once-”

“It’s not about the money, Alec,” Tess sighed. 

“Please, Tess.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Ellie felt warm human hands checking her vitals and her wound, and then she was swept under by another cocktail of painkillers. 

*

Ellie slept for hours. It was evening again when she woke to a tap on the window. A dark shape loomed outside the window, startling her, before she recognized Kim with her nose pressed up against the glass. She smiled shyly at Ellie and waved. 

“Don’t get up, Millah,” Hardy barked at her, closing the door behind him. He dumped a little bag from the hospital’s gift shop and a thermos on the tray next to her. 

“More grapes?” she quipped.

“That’s not for you,” he snapped and unlatched the window. 

“Get in here,” he ordered Kim, but his gruffness couldn’t disguise the genuine concern in his eyes as he caught the tiny fledgling before she tumbled to the floor. He set a swaying Kim on her feet and handed her the thermos. 

“Drink it,” he instructed Kim. “All of it. There’s plenty more for you when you’re finished. An entire batch of blood’s expired, they’ll have to waste it anyway.”

“Has she been out there the whole time?” Ellie asked worriedly as Kim guzzled down the blood that must’ve came from the blood bank.

“A couple of hours,” Hardy sighed as he checked to ensure that the window was latched and locked. “I thought Tess would never leave.” 

He helped Kim sit down in the chair and gave her the bag that Ellie had assumed was for her. Kim’s face lit up as if she hadn’t received anything in a very long time. 

“For me?” Kim asked him. 

“Yes, _you_. Open it,” Hardy said impatiently. 

Kim pulled out new ear pods similar to the ones Tom owned. 

“Those should help with the-” Hardy coughed and motioned to Ellie’s heart monitor.

Kim excitedly tore open the packaging and stuffed them into her ears. 

“She doesn’t have a phone,” Ellie realized and Hardy smacked his forehead. “Can you get mine?” 

Hardy retrieved hers from the tray and handed it to her. Ellie pulled up the music app Tom had downloaded on her smartphone before they’d gotten him one of his own. Then she urged Kim to come closer and plugged the dangling cord into her smart phone. Kim’s eyes widened.

“For me?” she gasped. 

“You can borrow it,” she told her. Kim danced off, already rearranging the playlist. 

As the pint-sized vampire curled up in the corner with her thermos and music, she didn’t look any different from the human teenagers Ellie saw lounging around the beach. 

“Thank you,” Hardy said suddenly and Ellie found him back in the chair at her bedside.

“For what?” she asked.

“For stopping me,” he whispered, watching Kim. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to remember…”

“That they’re human?” she whispered, “Or that you’re human?” 

He turned slowly to look at her, his gaze piercing right through her in a way that surely wasn’t human at all. Vampires couldn’t read minds, but in that moment, Ellie swore he could read hers and that he knew all about Claire’s warnings about him. 

“I don’t feel human,” he said wearily, raking his fingers through his hair. 

His eyes drifted back to Kim who must’ve been roughly the age his daughter had been when he’d been forced to end her life. Kim flashed a smile in their direction, unaware of how close Hardy had come to killing her with his own bare hands. One of those hands curled around Ellie’s wrist and she met his solemn gaze.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized again, his Scottish brogue rough and heavy with regret, “I shouldnae have drank from you.”

He shouldn’t have, but Ellie was currently trapped in a hospital room with him with no way of knowing if Claire had been lying or telling her the truth.

“You were feeding Kim your own blood,” she sighed and relented, “I should’ve known you wouldn’t react well to a taste of mine.”

Hardy touched her cheek, his fingertips now shockingly cold.

“I’m not human,” he reminded her sadly, “But that doesn’t give me an excuse.”

“Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” she huffed, pretending to dismiss the matter and forgive him. “I’m not holding it against you.”

“Don’t lie to me, Miller,” he said sharply. “When Ashworth finds out Claire’s gone, he’s coming for you and me,” he warned her. “We won’t last a day outside these walls if you don’t trust me.”

He was right, but Ellie was finding it difficult to trust him when there were so many secrets and lies between them. And yet, Ellie knew that regardless of how Hardy felt about her or her boys, he wanted to destroy Ashworth for what he’d done to his daughter. She could put her trust in the toxic mixture of wrath and hatred that roiled inside of him. If anyone ever harmed one of her children, she’d go on a rampage too. 

“We can’t face him alone, Hardy.” She shot a pointed glance at their fledgling. Hardy sighed and leaned back in his chair. 

“Millah, we can’t keep her.”

“I know you want to ship her off to one of those awful facilities, but she could be useful-”

“Ashworth can’t get to her in a facility,” Hardy cut her off. “She’ll be safe.” 

Claire had to be wrong about Hardy lacking a heart, he wore it on his bloody sleeve. 

“She’s nineteen and she has no training,” he added gruffly, “He’ll slaughter her.”

“She’s an adult, Hardy, it has to be her decision.”

“She’s a fledgling. She’s supposed to report to a facility. They can protect her better than we can and they’ll help her with the transition,” Hardy tried to reason with her. 

“Clearly no one’s coming to take her there or you would’ve already sent her away,” Ellie argued, “‘Sides you don’t want the Institute poking around now that Claire’s dead and you fed on me again.”

Hardy opened his mouth and stared at her in mounting horror. 

“They’ll want to interview you as soon as they catch wind of this,” he realized.

“Then you better get me discharged by tomorrow,” she snapped. “I’m assuming you didn’t report this to your guardians.”

The tips of Hardy’s ears turned red and he tugged hard on his earlobe. But Ellie was already piecing together the fuzzy memories she had of the previous evening. She whacked his arm, and he scowled at her. 

“You weren’t even going to tell me the doctor who’s taking care of me is your wife and your legal guardian. _Unbelievable_.” She tried to smack him again, but Hardy dodged her pathetic attempt.

“I’m a soon-to-be divorced man, you could be more sympathetic,” he said dryly. 

“I’m more concerned about your lack of a legal guardian,” Ellie retorted. 

“I’ve got Jocelyn,” he reminded her. But Ellie suspected that Jocelyn was pushing eighty or past it. She could’ve been in good health, but no one lived forever. 

“You need two,” she pointed out. 

Hardy ran his palm over the bedsheet, smoothing out the wrinkles. His hand stopped just shy of hers, opening and closing as if he was debating whether his touch would be welcome or not. 

“I was thinking that maybe you could…” he started.

Ellie froze as Claire’s voice snaked through her mind, warning her that he’d set his plan in motion by roping her into being his legal guardian. Hardy stiffened as if he was privy to her thoughts and fears. 

“I’m not marrying you,” Ellie blurted.

“I wasn’t asking,” he scoffed and then his head whipped around. 

“Don’t even think about it,” he chided Kim as if she were a toddler. Ellie hadn’t heard her move, but the fledgling was now hovering. 

“Go watch telly or something,” Hardy dismissed her, but Kim glanced worriedly from Hardy to Ellie. Her head cocked to one side and she seemed to be asking Ellie something with her eyes. 

Abruptly, Ellie remembered that Hardy had mentioned that vampires could smell a lie. They could smell fear too and detect it in the minute changes of a heartbeat. Being a fledgling and a stranger, Kim was more attuned to Ellie’s pulse than Hardy, who had to be inured to it by now. 

“Are you okay?” Kim asked her, ignoring Hardy. 

“I’m worried about my children,” Ellie confessed, honestly. Kim nodded, but she looked perplexed and unconvinced as she studied the pair of them. 

Hardy’s hand closed over Ellie’s and he lowered his head so that that they were on eyelevel. 

“I’m not going to let anything happen to them,” he promised, but Kim frowned at Hardy’s back. 

As soon as Hardy left to refill Kim’s empty thermos, the fledgling crouched down next to Ellie and lightly touched her arm. 

“I’m okay. Really,” she assured the young vampire. “He’s not going to hurt me.” 

Not physically, anyway. 

Ellie knew that most of what Claire had told her was a pack of lies, but she couldn’t help but wonder if there were some grains of truth in there. 

No words passed between them, but Kim deliberately tapped the Mark that Jack had left on her, not Hardy. Kim didn’t dare Mark her with her own blood, vampires were very territorial and the smaller fledgling wouldn’t dare risk a confrontation here, but the message was clear. 

Kim would protect her from Hardy if necessary. Ellie felt a smidge better knowing Kim was coming home with them. 

*

The following morning, Ellie felt the absence of her chilly shadow. It wasn’t long before Doctor Tess Henchard – the woman in the white coat and Hardy’s soon-to-be-ex-wife – poked her head into Ellie’s room. And this time, Ellie was wide awake and lucid. 

Tess greeted her with a polite smile and introduced herself as the doctor presently in charge of Ellie’s recovery. 

“You’re his wife,” Ellie blurted. Apparently, her manners had cycled out of her system along with the sedative. 

“Not for much longer,” Tess retorted with an exasperated sigh. She picked up Kim’s thermos and sniffed it, shaking her head. 

“I suspected as much. Alec hasn’t touched a drop of this.” 

Tess’s shrewd eyes scanned the room, missing nothing. Before Ellie could stop her, Tess had opened the window and stuck her head out. 

“Come here,” Tess hissed at Kim, “Yes, _you_. You might’ve died but that doesn’t mean you’re a ghost. The patient in six has been ‘hallucinating’ you all morning.” Ellie wasn’t sure how much of that Kim understood, but Tess dragged the wide-eyed fledgling in through the window.

Kim scuttled over to Ellie’s side before drawing herself up to her full height. 

“This is Kim,” Ellie said. Tess arched a brow, unimpressed by her bodyguard. “She doesn’t speak much English,” Ellie explained. 

“It’s okay,” Ellie reassured Kim, brushing a hand down the girl’s rigid arm. “She took care of me. She’s not going to hurt me or you,” Ellie stated, making sure that Tess understood the thinly veiled threat. Tess’s eyes softened as they swept over Kim again. 

“You would be the sort of vampire he’d take under his wing,” Tess remarked with a touch of fondness. “Here.” She offered Kim the thermos as a peace offering. Kim accepted it, but kept her eyes locked on Tess as she returned to her corner with Ellie’s phone. 

“Where’s Hardy?” Ellie asked once Tess had examined her and redressed the wound. She’d helped her sit up on her side so that Ellie felt a bit more in control in her state of helplessness. 

“I imagine he’s not very far,” Tess hedged, “Although he left his trusted sentry in charge.” 

They both glanced over at Kim who narrowed her eyes at Tess and growled. If Ellie hadn’t already seen Kim in action, the baby fangs peeking past her lips might’ve still been comical. Ellie shook her head and Kim huffed, but left Tess alone. 

“I’m afraid I don’t have much time,” Tess lamented, rubbing at her eyes. “He’ll be back soon.”

Ellie sat up straighter and Tess’s eyes were drawn to the pink scar on her neck where Hardy had bit her months ago. She took off her spectacles and pointed them at Ellie’s neck. 

“May I ask what happened there?”

Ellie hesitated, but she’d overheard enough to understand that Tess would be discrete (Hardy or the Institute had something on her) and Hardy had likely already told Tess what had happened. Ellie gave her a quick rundown of the scene in the boatyard, heavily editing her relation to the criminal. 

“The feeding was consensual?” Tess verified with her. Her eyes were bright with curiosity as if Ellie was a specimen under a microscope. Ellie nodded, fidgeting with a loose thread on her blanket. 

“They would’ve killed him if they’d found him like that,” she defended her rash decision to donate her blood. “I couldn’t let that happen to him, not after they turned on Jack-” She broke off with a lump in her throat as Jack’s body on the beach flashed through her mind, followed by hazy smoke and Hardy curling a comforting arm around her shoulders as she wept. 

“That’s a lot of trust between the two of you,” Tess commented. 

The thread between Ellie’s fingertips snapped. 

“I hate to ask this, Ellie, but I need you to tell me why you let it happen again. I’ve heard Hardy’s side, now I need to hear yours.”

Ellie opened her mouth to tell her the truth; she didn’t really remember what had possessed her to make that suggestion. Hardy claimed she’d asked him to do it, but she’d been in so much pain; physically and mentally as she’d grappled with the fact that she’d killed someone and she’d been bleeding out. 

“Did he ever kill anyone?” The query tumbled from Ellie’s lips, surprising them both. Tess blinked at her as if she was an idiot. Of course, Hardy had killed vampires and had condemned others to their death; he’d been a bloody Wraith.

“I heard he escaped a facility to go on a homicidal spree…” She trailed off because Tess’s face had gone deathly white. And suddenly Ellie understood _why_ Hardy had gone on a killing spree. Claire hadn’t been lying, not entirely. Hardy had bloody told her himself.

“He did escape a high-security Class-A facility,” Tess admitted tremulously. “I’m surprised he – well, no I guess it’s not that surprising.” She took a deep breath and carded her fingers through her hair. “I’m not at the liberty to tell you everything, but it’s not what you think.” Her voice cracked convincingly and Ellie felt awful for making Tess relive those traumatic memories. She couldn’t even imagine what it must’ve been like for her to lose a child so young and in that way. 

“Forget it.”

“No, you need to know. It’s actually why I’m here,” Tess said with another nervous glance at the door. Then she handed over a thin file to Ellie. 

“Alec needs a new guardian as soon as possible,” she explained and Ellie’s jaw dropped at the paperwork she found inside the file. 

“I can’t.” She closed the file but Tess clapped a hand over hers. 

“Ellie, listen to me,” she said urgently. “I’ve just been diagnosed with Breast Cancer and Alec _cannot_ find out.”

Ellie nearly dropped the file, struck dumb by the last thing she ever expected. 

“My oncologist thinks it’s treatable and I’ll be in remission six months from now,” Tess brushed it off with a close-lipped smile, “But oncologists have to be optimistic.”

“You have to tell him.”

Tess shook her head. 

“I know Alec, he’ll want to take care of me. He’s a vampire now, but he still has a human heart,” she explained. Regret coloured her voice as she revealed, “I wasn’t a faithful wife and I struggled with balancing my career and being a mother to a child I never planned for. But Alec was a good father, when he was around. He wasn’t the worst husband, he took his vows very seriously,” she acknowledged.

Ellie felt her face flush as she recalled a few nights ago when she’d climbed into bed with Hardy and had kissed him under the cover of darkness. Tess chuckled. 

“Not anymore, mind you,” she said, sobering. “After what happened, I told him I wanted nothing to do with him and I was under the impression that the feeling was mutual.” 

Ellie relaxed. 

“We spent the last twenty-three years married for the sake of our shared penance. Solely on paper,” Tess said with a rueful smile, confirming everything Hardy had already told her. “I have no regrets, but I certainly don’t want Alec taking care of me out of some twisted sense of obligation.

Ellie didn’t know how to react. She’d been worried that Hardy would somehow charm her into signing off on the guardianship, even though she’d never seen the cranky vampire charm anyone, except for maybe Fred. She’d never expected she’d be faced with Hardy’s desperate wife who seemed to care for him on some level. 

“I think you already know why Alec escaped that facility, but I can’t talk about her, Ellie, I’m sorry,” Tess apologized. Tears welled up in her eyes and Ellie deduced that Hardy’s wife was a woman who very rarely cried. 

“You have to understand, Alec was a fledgling, freshly sired,” Tess sniffed, discretely wiping at her eyes. “He tracked down a group of vampires hiding in a heavily populated part of Manchester, but Alec didn’t harm anyone except his targets,” she recounted, struggling for composure. “He must’ve passed by _thousands_ of humans that day, but he turned back up at the facility without so much as sniffing at one of them.” She paused, shaking her head in disbelief. “I’ve read his file and the results of his trials. They investigated the incident and retraced his steps; someone at the Institute wanted to nail him for attacking an innocent, but he has more self-control than vampires who have been adjusted for centuries.”

Ellie snorted. 

“You’re joking, right?” Ellie retorted. “He’s _terrible_ at taking care of himself. He bit me twice and he makes himself sick just by _looking_ at the water.”

Tess gave her a watery laugh. 

“That does sound more like him,” she conceded, spinning her spectacles between her fingertips. “Has he ever bit anyone else?”

“Not that I know of, but he avoids most of humanity as if they have the plague.”

Tess studied her with a thoughtful expression and then nodded. 

“You’ll be safer if you tie yourself to him, Ellie.” She held up a hand to silence Ellie’s protests. “Alec can be more intense and reckless than anyone I’ve ever met. I don’t even want to know what he’s like now in vampire form, but he’s fiercely loyal and protective of anyone he cares about, and Ellie…” Tess tapped the file in her lap. “If you become his guardian, you’ll have access to all the information you want on him. You’ll have financial and legal control over him.”

Ellie had never really thought about the fact that she’d have power _over_ Hardy. 

“He could adjust my memories,” she reminded Tess. 

“Have you seen him do it?” Tess asked curiously, leaning in closer.

“That doesn’t mean he can’t,” Ellie argued, but Tess narrowed her eyes, deep in thought. 

“I lost my only child to Claire Ripley and Lee Ashworth,” she said at last, and Ellie felt sympathy wash over her. “Don’t make the same mistake that I did, Ellie,” Tess murmured, squeezing her hand. “Alec wants to bring down Lee Ashworth, no one wants that more than him, but he can’t do it on his own. Your children won’t be safe until Ashworth’s gone and Alec needs your help.”

Ellie gazed into the eyes of the woman who had once been Hardy’s trusted confidante, the mother of his child, and the keeper of his heart. Tess was shamelessly trying to offload the burden of Hardy’s guardianship onto her, but she was right. Hardy was the only one who wanted to destroy Ashworth, but he needed someone he could trust to have his back. 

“It’s not a life-sentence,” Tess added, offering her a pen. “Once he gets Lee Ashworth, Jocelyn can find someone else who’s willing to take over the reins.”

“But what if Jocelyn dies or…” Ellie tapered off, because Kim had left her corner and Tess’s face had been wiped blank. The doctor’s shuttered gaze had moved beyond Ellie to the door where Hardy now stood like a marble statue. Ellie had expected he’d be relieved, but Hardy’s pale skin was nearly translucent and his eyes smouldered with anger. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he growled at Tess.

“I can’t risk the lives of the other four hundred people in this hospital,” Tess said, rising from her chair and standing up to the husband who’d extinguished the life of her only child. “I want all three of you out of here by the end of the day.”

Hardy moved so suddenly, tossing the chair out of his path and getting right up in his wife’s face. Kim let out a furious stream of Vietnamese, reappearing in front of Ellie like a skinny shield, but Hardy had halted a couple inches shy of Tess.

“The guardianship has to be _Ellie’s_ decision,” he seethed. “I’m not _forcing_ her into anything. She has to be _fully_ informed and consenting.”

“I never had that luxury,” Tess spat.

Hardy looked as if he wanted to break Tess’s neck, but he leaned in close and whispered something in her ear. Tess deflated and brought her hands up to her face. Ellie watched in horror as Tess’s shoulders started to shake with muffled sobs.

“I know,” she gasped between sobs, “Alec, I’m so scared that he’ll kill you and then who will protect-”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Hardy roughly cut her off, grasping her shoulders. “Not ‘til I’ve torn out his heart for what he did to our Daisy.” 

The anger drained out of him as he wrapped his arms around his wife, comforting her and soothing her with whispered words too low for Ellie’s human ears. Ellie felt tears of her own prick at her eyes as she watched the heartbroken pair unite for a fragile moment over the worst tragedy imaginable. This could be Tess’s last goodbye to a man who had fathered her only child and Hardy had no idea he was about to lose her to something more lethal than Ashworth. 

Kim patted Ellie’s arm and handed her the pen that she’d dropped. Kim had no idea what was going on, but Ellie went with her gut feeling. 

While Tess and Hardy grieved the loss of their daughter and their marriage, Ellie signed all the documents in a rush. She barely read a word of the fine print, but she stamped every page with a tear blotch and her signature.

*

After Tess discharged Ellie, Hardy wheeled her out to the car and Kim drove them home. Ellie slept the entire ride home and stirred only when Hardy laid her down on the bed in their bungalow. He pet her hair; gingerly untangling the snarled curls. The remorse was radiating off of him in tangible waves, she might’ve been asleep but she’d sensed that he hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since she’d signed the contract. 

“It was my decision,” she told him, her voice gravelly with exhaustion.

“Did you even read it?” he asked her and Ellie closed her eyes. She’d handed the documents right back to a red-eyed Tess. 

“Millah,” Hardy sighed. The mattress dipped as he stretched out alongside her. Regardless of the thorny mess of half-truths and lies that filled her head, she felt safer with him near her.

Something icy brushed along the shell of her ear; Hardy was tracing the scab on the shell of her left ear. A brick had nicked her ear when Claire had broken through the wall and Ellie had instinctively shielded Kim.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’ve known for months Tess wanted to rescind the guardianship and I’ve been meaning to talk to you...”

Ellie carefully rolled over onto her back, surprised that the motion didn’t hurt as much as she’d been expecting.

“As your bodyguard, it’s in both of our best interests for you to protect me and my sons,” she said with a careless shrug. “And now I have power over you,” she added with a grin as if that had been what swayed her decision and not Tess’s shocking cancer diagnosis. 

“You’ve always had power over me, Ellie,” he whispered, running a knuckle down her cheek and eliciting a shiver from her. “I owe you a life debt for stopping Claire.”

“And I’m holding you to it,” she warned him.

Hardy’s lips grazed her cheek and a critical part of her brain malfunctioned. The delicate touch of his mouth was like falling snow that melted against her heated skin. Something inside of her calmed as if she were standing outside in the aftermath of a snowstorm. Before he could disappear into the shadows, Ellie reached for him. 

Hardy bent to kiss her opposite cheek, but there was nothing cold about the way he cradled her face in the curve of his hands and spoke against her chapped lips. 

“I thought I lost you in the attic,” he whispered brokenly. His hands trembled against her face, framing the Marks he’d left on her for her own protection that had done nothing to dissuade Claire from hurting her. “Your blood was already poisoned. You were losing too much and I could smell the infection-”

Ellie hooked her fingers into the collar of his Oxford that had been ruined by her blood and brought his mouth a breath closer to hers. Their lips joined for a heartbeat, before he gently pulled away.

“It’s by the sink,” he called out. 

Kim slammed a drawer and muttered something in Vietnamese. Ellie didn’t need to be fluent to understand that it was a curse. 

“The other sink,” Hardy groaned and leaned over to the nightstand. Ellie sat up too and the pain fired up whatever part of her brain had temporarily shorted out. Hardy handed her two pills and a glass of water. 

And then he slipped the necklace over her head. 

Like a metaphorical noose, Ellie felt her throat and chest tightening beneath the weight of the Celtic Cross and the St. Mark’s medal. She’d stepped outside of herself for a moment, but now the reality of their situation came crashing back down on her.

“I want to see my boys tomorrow.”

“We’ll discuss everything in the morning,” Hardy said, but he was distracted by Kim.

“Get some rest,” he urged her. Patting her on the head, Hardy left her alone. 

“I know you’re hungry,” he murmured to Kim, “I’m getting it. See? It’s all right here and you don’t need my permission to eat. No, that’s for you, Kim.”

Hardy tried to pretend that he didn’t have a human heart and that he was as cold as his skin, but Ellie heard his humanity bleeding out in his voice and saw it in his actions as he took the fledgling he hadn’t wanted under his wing. 

So why couldn’t she shake the feeling that Claire had been trying to warn her about him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously there was a lot of borrowed and modified dialogue from S1 and S2 in this chapter that does not belong to me. I fought with this chapter, hence the delay and the extra length. Hopefully the next one will come easier and will be less depressing and more enlightening as far as Hardy's POV and background goes. Thanks y'all!


End file.
